VISITING THE VAULT
by ellymelly
Summary: Visiting Missy in the Vault can be a risk. #Twissy
1. Chapter 1

He does not understand her – but he understands her _completely_. That's the paradox he faces every time she flickers into his life, like a candle tugged into the dark by a strong wind only to flare straight back, brighter than before.

Usually it's a roller-coaster. She is the definition of _chaos_ and wants, more than anything, for him to chase her across time. He leaves the phone ringing when he thinks it's her. He pretends he doesn't see her fragments of thought on his psychic paper. He closes the door when the TARDIS drops him near her wild parties. He tries – oh he tries – to stay away.

It's not because he doesn't care.

Not at all.

It's because he cares _far too much_ and he has this throat-clutching terror that they are going to destroy each other one day. Perhaps they already had.

The Doctor lingered outside the vault. Another monstrosity built by the Timelords… Confession Dials, Pocket Watches, Vaults – what was it with their pension for trapping people in time-locked torment? He'd always wondered where Missy found her pension for bondage when the answer was startlingly simple. Timelords.

He wasn't even supposed to be down here. Nardole wouldn't approve – he never did. 'A risk, you are – on your own.' _On his own with Missy._ Well… Tough. They'd never needed a chaperone before and only a few civilisations got caught in the cross-fire.

Strange. He can't hear the soft thrum of piano keys. The Doctor presses both hands against the cool surface – then his ear. The vault hums but it's an electric quiver not a psychopath's song.

He clenches his fist briefly with a flare of pain before typing in the codes. The vault hisses open. He wastes no time closing it behind him. It wasn't above her dignity to surprise him at the door and make a dash for it. The last time she'd done that he had to fish her out of the university fountain.

This time it's different. He sees her at once – a crumpled heap atop the grand piano. The Doctor's shoulders drop. His lungs drain of air. It hurts him, right to the marrow, to see his friend like this.

Quietly, he crosses the room and lingers outside the forcefield. It's all for show. A harmless trick of the light to quiet Nardole's concerns. They play up the lie. Pretending to snap their hands away from the forcefield in pain. She snarls at it. He broods at it with his eyebrows. Nardole won't got near it.

"Oh _Missy_..." He breathes, stepping up to the piano.

She doesn't quiet fit on the polished surface. One arm dangles over the side. She's using her forearm as a pillow with an endless vision of her wild hair obscuring her face. A legs hangs off the other side. Her boots are on the floor underneath and she's left wearing purple socks with silver stars.

His hearts falter – but that's because they're dying.

He can't leave her like that.

Carefully, the Doctor slips one of his arms underneath her. She shifts, curling up towards him on instinct. He's not sure if she's pretending to be asleep for a bit of attention – even so, he'd still give her this moment.

He starts to doubt a rouse when her head lulls against his chest. Normally she's broken the act by now but Missy remains a dead weight in his arms as he carriers her down the steps and across the room. He lays her on the bed, letting her slide onto the red silk.

Should he stay? He doesn't know. It's a question the Doctor considers as he attempts to brush some of her wild hair off her face.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time a face visits the vault it is not him. Missy tried to hide her disappointment by stalking around her cage, trailing her fingers over the surface of the piano. She has the lid up. The strings beneath are still but when the Doctor is playing she likes to watch them quiver in time with his song. She wears red gloves. A gift. Ever since she complained of the cold he'd begun fetching her things from all over time. A scarf from Alpha-Yori, two beautiful rugs woven beneath the oceans of Petrichor, and a pair of red gloves from Earth's Victorian era. If the egg-one wonders where these gifts come from, he hasn't said.

It's not the egg-one today. Missy can sense that without looking. The vault door is opened with such trepidation you'd think that the Doctor had a black hole stashed away behind the Gallifreyan etchings. She's never heard the hinges squeak but they do this time, struggling with the achingly slow speed.

"Well come in already..." Missy says, without looking up from the piano. "If I was going to escape I'd have done so before you arrived. It's bad manners, you see. You do those sorts of things when no one's looking to add to the drama."

Bill isn't sure what to make of the imprisoned Timelord. She's only seen her a few times since their first encounter and Missy's never acknowledged her presence. Missy only had eyes for the Doctor and such big, sad eyes they were too. Without context it was difficult to work out _why_ Missy was in this box but it didn't seem entirely like it was a punishment. Underneath Missy's odd, Victorian exterior, Bill got the impression that she was in a fragile state. Baring some kind of strange-sexual-fantasy between Timelords, Bill rather thought he was protecting her.

Bill cleared her throat and closed the door. Missy was contained inside the forcefield but there was something about the fragile veneer of blue light that she didn't trust. Perhaps it was the Doctor she didn't trust...

"Heya..." Bill started, lifting a hand in greeting. There wasn't really a point, though – Missy had no interest in looking at her. Fair enough. "It's me. Again."

Missy rolled her eyes dramatically. Humans really were extremely tiresome. No wonder she kept killing them. It was the most effective way to stop them speaking. "Yes dear. I am aware of who you are. The Doctor keeps dragging you in to see me so I can only assume you're another one of his strays. He's had _loads_. I'll leave it to you to work out what happened to the others."

Bill had already guessed that her predecessors experienced mixed endings… There was risk in anything and if Bill was going to meet an early end she'd rather do it out on some amazing planet or saving a civilisation. Yeah. She was cool with that. Shaking off the thought, Bill crossed the room and lingered beside the Doctor's chair. She didn't dare sit in it in case it provoked Missy.

"I've a – brought you something." Absolutely no reaction. "Something the Doctor probably wouldn't approve of." This time Missy stiffens. "Because – you know – I noticed that he just leaves you down here for weeks on your own and I know what that's like. Not the vault. The Doctor doesn't leave me locked in a vault. That – wasn't what I was trying to say. What I _meant_ was, I know what it feels like to be alone, so I brought you this."

Eventually Missy shuffled around on the piano seat and turned to find the human holding out a small wrapped present that looked oddly like a book. "And what is that – a book full of fairy tales? Perhaps not. Maybe you're more the 'romance' sort."

"It's not a book," Bill assured her. "It's a..." Well, she didn't want to spoil the surprise. Instead, Bill moved closer to the cage and let the present hover near the barrier. "I'm not sure how to give it to you though."

Missy's hand reached straight through the cage and snatched the present away making Bill jump back in fright. "Hold on! How'd you… But he said… Oh my god. You're not even! Nardole is going to be _so cross_."

Missy waggled her eyebrows and slinked back to the piano stool to open the gift meanwhile Bill was left to contemplate just how much of a liar the Doctor really was.

The Timelord tore away the paper, scratching it with her nails. As a large section of it ripped away she paused, dragging a sharp gasp of air in. The human had given her a framed photo of her and the Doctor. It was a selfi she'd taken on that phone-device on the steps of Saint Paul's before Unit had arrived and ruined their date.

"Some woman from UNIT gave the Doctor a bag full of things and there was a phone amongst it. He showed me the photo," though Bill left out the bit where she'd notice the Doctor smile ever so fondly at it first, "and I remembered something really important. Photos matter. I thought you might like one for your – ah – vault."

Missy held the partially wrapped photo against her chest protectively as though it were a child. "Get out..." She whispered.

Bill frowned. "I uh – I'm sorry?"

"Get. Out." Missy growled, emotion eroding the edge of her reply. "Get out!" She screeched a second later.

Bill turned and _ran_ from the vault, slamming the door behind her.

As soon as Missy heard it close she pulled the photo away from her chest and tore the rest of the paper off. She stared at the image for some time, processing the rush of feelings threatening to drown her. It had been so long ago and yet she remembered every moment. How long she'd waited to stand beside her friend again. How much she'd wanted to play with him in the only game she understood. How he'd – for that brief moment – smiled while the picture snapped. Him and that ridiculous new face of his. He'd never been able to settle on a look. Always changing. Always moving on. Always leaving her behind to die.

A tear fell onto the glass covering the photo.

The first time the Doctor left her behind was on Gallifrey. What did she do wrong? He'd never told her. How – how dare he leave her like that – alone in a world that didn't understand her. Of _course_ she'd followed and all this time he'd never asked _why_. Why did she keep blowing up planets to say hello? _Because he never answered his phone._ Sometimes she convinced herself, in rare moments, that the Doctor cared about their friendship but then, when she found herself watching his stupid bloody blue box fade into nothing, she realised that he mustn't care for her at all.

Another tear. She wiped them away with her sleeve.

Much, much later, the Doctor entered the vault carrying a small kitten he'd found wandering around his office. He had every intention of returning it but for the moment he thought maybe Missy'd like to have a look at it. She liked things like that. Animals. It was the unconditional love in their eyes when they looked at you. No questions, just affection.

"I've brought you something," he said, trying desperately to keep a hold of the kitten as it started climbing onto his shoulder. He wrestled it back. "Missy?"

"Out in a moment. Changing." She called from the far corner of the vault where there were beautifully detailed screens set up, stolen from an ancient Chinese palace.

The Doctor wandered around for a while and then caught sight of the new item on Missy's bedside table. He stopped. Astounded. He felt his heart clench and couldn't place why. He wasn't going to ask _how_ but there was a photo of both of them beside her bed and she'd arranged the picture as though he were – _something else_ to her. Something more. Something…

"Here I am then." Missy appeared, fixing her hair. She was wearing a new velvet dress with laces up the back and cream lace.

The Doctor turned around and nearly dropped the kitten. "Uh..."

Missy's eyes went wide when she saw the kitten.


	3. Chapter 3

"You really do have to stop moving about." The Doctor muttered – though it came out rather muffled. He had a pencil lodged between his teeth and another two tucked behind one ear. Smudges of graphite besmirched nearly every surface of his skin. He'd left his jacked draped over the back of his chair with other stray items. The heat was unbearable – sweat dripping off him as though he were a one-mad sodding rainforest. No matter how many heaters he brought in for her, Missy always complained of the cold. It wasn't a lie either. When he touched her hand or her cheek he felt the ice there. It was as though she was the dark side of the moon.

"I'm barely breathing!" Missy protested. "You're the one who doesn't have steady hands."

He frowned, causing deep furrows across his forehead. _Angry Scottish canyons_ she called them. Maybe she was right. They were pretty distinct. Excessive, even. It wasn't his fault. That was what this face did – made expressions whether he wanted it to or not. People seemed to be able to read his emotions more easily now – and that vexed him.

"You _are_ moving," he protested, "because that arm is not where it was five minutes ago. The – the angle is all wrong and everything." The Doctor looks up from his sketch pad and frowns again. The tip of his pencil hovers over the surface, unsure of what to do. Missy really _is_ moving about and he's not surprised. He's never been able to keep her still. She was a restless tide and he, the shore. "Oh now where's that gone and come from? You've let your hair down while I was drawing that hand!"

Missy smirked – an evil flicker in her eye. Well maybe she was moving _a bit_ but that was only because she liked the lines deepening across his forehead. "I was bored with it like that and _you_ won't bring me any curling irons so what else am I supposed to do? It's just _frizz._ "

"We discussed that," he insisted. "I know what else you can build with those things."

"Always _so_ suspicious."

"I wonder why that might be..." he trailed off when a pencil slipped from his ear and clattered to the floor. He dived after it – dislodging two more.

Missy snickers every time she hears one of them strike the Italian tiles she's had laid. They're very expensive but he hasn't noticed – mostly because he has absolutely no idea how money works. He once tried to pay for dinner with gold bullions from Mars. He'd be fleeced in an instant on his own. _Dinner on Mars._ What a night that had been. She'd tried to make a pet out of one of the human rovers but he wouldn't let her keep it.

"You've moved again." The Doctor was frowning – his pencils back behind his ears like odd antennae. This time he had no choice but to abandon his drawing, turn the page and start over. That was obviously her intention. The longer it took him to complete the longer she got to lounge over the piano and pick stories from him. He wasn't sure if she had any ulterior motive or if she genuinely liked to hear him warble away.

The latter… Try as she might she loved his stories – especially the ones where he lost a companion or two. The child-eating house was a recent favourite but this one, with a space station full of space-walking-zombies was cracking up to be a close second.

They were disturbed by the sudden squeal of the vault door opening. Missy averted her eyes to the intruders with a dark scowl.

"Oh _no_..." Nardole whined. "Not _again_!"

Bill, who had followed him in, stopped dead and slammed her hands over her eyes to block out the sight.

Missy rolled her eyes. "Always so dramatic – these humans of yours. Uncultured pond scum. What's the matter, dear? Never taken an art class in your miserable nano-life?"

Honestly, it wasn't the completely _starkers_ Missy lounging on the piano that bothered her. Truth was Bill _had_ taken a few life drawing classes in her time so it was no biggie – unlike the blue heart-shaped diamond hanging around Missy's neck. No. That wasn't what had Bill voluntarily blinding herself.

"Fine but why is _he_ naked?!"

Bill was never going to be able to scrub the image of his scrawny, pale limbs folded into the chair with nothing but a sketchbook for modesty out of her mind.

"Oh _that_..." Missy purred. "That's a _condition_."

"A condition of -" Bill started to ask, then realised she _really_ didn't want to know. "Actually. Nevermind. We're leaving. Come on, Nardole." Bill groped around blindly for Nardole while keeping her eyes firmly shut.

"But we're supposed to ask him about-"

"Not right now we're not!" Bill insisted.

The vault door slammed shut. Missy stretched lazily on the polished surface. "Next time try and get yourself something more interesting…"

The Doctor hadn't really registered anything that had just happened because he was too busy trying to fix his drawing. "You're not keeping that, you know..." He replied to a much earlier conversation thread.

Missy touched the diamond around her neck and sulked. "Why ever not?"

"Because I stole it and I've been trying to get better about that sort of thing. If I bring it back it's only borrowing."

"You and your lines, Doctor – you're so determined not to cross them."

"And you keep moving them all and wonder why I get frustrated with you."

"I like it best when you're frustrated..." But the double entendre was wasted on him.


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor ducked underneath the flying chair. It soared overhead, arced gracefully through the air and smashed into kindling when it met the vault door.

"Missy!" He hissed, straightening up. "You nearly hit me that time!"

"That was rather the point!" She shrieked back, hunting for another projectile.

They'd been going at it for hours – snarling and raging – mostly in Gallifreyan so perversive that even the Tardis held back from translating. The Doctor wasn't quite sure what set her off. They'd been talking by the fireplace on her new rug, recanting some of their earlier histories when the tears had started. When they refused to stop, she'd risen from the rug in a hail of fury that started with a cup of tea drenching his face and ended – well it hadn't ended yet…

"Missy _please_..." He implored her. "Remember what we agreed? Use your words. Come on – talk to me. Missy – _Missy!_ "

She'd latched her claws onto one of the metal side tables and that too was on its way toward him. He dived to the side just in time.

"What happens if you hit me and I regenerate – will that make you feel better?" He finally shouted back at her, his accent overwhelming Scottish.

"Maybe!" But even as she screamed the reply her words fell in doubt.

"Hey – hey!" The Doctor caught the book she hurled at his head. "This is your favourite." He muttered, setting it down safely on the floor. This was _his_ fault. The more he delved into Missy's past the more raw her emotions became. He should have known that reminiscing about Gallifrey might push her over the edge and _boy was she furious_.

This time the Doctor managed to catch one of the delicate French bar stools. He held it, upside down and for a moment his temper snapped. She knew exactly how to pick away at his facade and that last comment about a previous companion made him do something he'd later regret.

"Fine – have it your way!" He roared back, throwing the chair with just as much force as her – although he aimed his shot at the window behind. The stool shattered the thin panel of glass, dissolving the projection of the outside world. Its pieces rained down around Missy – who ducked, hands over her head.

When the hail stop she turned back and looked at the bleak wall of the vault where the window had be. There was something about the finality of the vault wall left behind her that made her soul clench. _She was trapped in a vault._ No matter how the Doctor tried to dress it up these six walls were her life and they felt as though they were getting closer. He didn't understand what it was like to be boxed in with only your demons for company. What kind of a monster was he to put her through this? She'd rather be dead. At least, that's what she felt today as she picked herself up off the ground and dusted the glass off her coat.

"This is what you've always wanted, isn't it?" She lowered her voice, stalking toward him. She noticed that his jacket was ripped. That must have been the hat stand… "Your captive audience."

"Missy..."

"Well _surprise…_ You didn't have to lock me in a vault, you idiot. I'd have come with you the first time but _you left_."

The Doctor squared off against her, transfixed by her red-rimmed eyes. She was burrowing through him – tearing at the edges of his soul.

"You promised me the stars and you left me… Do you have _any idea what they did to me_ after you left? Did you even ask?"

No. He'd never asked.

She started walking toward him and honestly the Doctor would rather she throw another chair. He felt himself shake as she came within inches of him. Cinnamon. She always smelled of cinnamon.

"I'd have travelled with you _forever_."

He swallowed hard but this time it was guilt that welled at the back of his throat. He'd never seen so much hurt in another creature. He'd made her this way and it killed him. "I -"

"Save it." She growled, followed by a vicious Gallifreyan insult which he'd thoroughly earned. "We're all that's left of our race, Doctor. The poles. The planet's gone – everything in between. It's just you and me at opposite ends. Whatever you're trying to do here it won't work. If you unravel me you won't like what's left behind."

Perhaps he was making a terrible mistake. This process was hurting her – maybe too much. The Doctor didn't know what to do and didn't fancy another chair in his face so he left with the vault door slamming behind.

Missy blinked at the empty room. A lamp that had been balancing on the edge of a table, tumbled onto the floor and smashed. She turned and looked back at the broken window. The Gallifreyan etchings glistened in what remained of the firelight beneath. This was a _prison_ and now she'd thrown out the only reason she'd agreed to stay in the first place. Missy fell to the ground amidst the shards of glass. She didn't care that some cut across her skin. Their false projection still shimmered inside the fragments. She picked one up, looking at a few stray leaves in their image and sobbed so hard she forgot to breathe.

The last thing she expected was the door to open again.

She heard it shut gently and there he was, the Doctor, back already. "If you've returned for round two I'm not in the mood!" Missy picked herself up off the floor and fashioned him with a threatening look that was somewhat dampened by her tears. The Doctor was undeterred, striding toward her like a storm. "Doctor _I warn you_!"

There was something wrong. She couldn't quite place it before he was within striking distance. Missy lifted her hand and, like a vengeful cat, slapped him hard across the face.

The Doctor stumbled. His cheek burned from the impact. He could feel an extra burn of pain from her ornamental ring. He placed his palm over the skin and indulged in the hum of blood rushing to the surface. The pain was good. The pain meant that Missy was still alive. This time, when she came in for a second strike he was ready.

Missy growled when the Doctor caught her by the wrist.

 _He didn't say anything_. Missy wasn't sure what to do with the look in his eyes. There was a pit of hurt there, far deeper than a few moments ago. He was looking at her like she was the entire universe and it made her breath catch. Then he was leaning in and Missy only had a moment to close her eyes before he was on her lips. Softly at first – that's what struck her. She felt his right hand press against her back and his other loosen its hold on her wrist the slide, very slowly, down her arm until they were knitted together.

She opened her lips to him first with a soft mewling. The Doctor was crying this time. His tears were smearing against her cheek and breaking both her hearts at the same time.

That's when she worked it out – as his kiss stole the last of her breath.

Missy pulled back first. Not very far. They were nose to nose and he was a mess.

"How long?" She whispered.

The Doctor leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers. He wasn't allowed to answer, of course.

"What happened?" She asked instead.

His eyes closed causing a pair of heavy tears to escape.

"Oh..." Missy whispered. _Oh_. Somewhere in another time, she was dead...


	5. Chapter 5

She's careful now – never knowing _which_ doctor was about to visit. There was no more pouncing on him as he rushed through the vault door. No more beckoning him coyly from the edge of the piano. No. Now she waited with a book in hand, lounging in the sturdy red-leather chair. She liked its buttons and, because it was make of solid oak, it had survived their argument intact.

"Oh Doctor – what have you gone and done now?" She asked, when his younger self appeared, bounding through the door with a takeaway. Missy wasn't hungry but she always ate what he brought her. He was like a puppy bringing her bones and she couldn't bear to knock his smile off.

"Oooooooh..." He grinned, setting the plastic bag down on the table. He picked the last upturned chair from the ground and frowned at the wobbly leg. "Have to get that fixed," the Doctor muttered to himself, making a note before he realised he'd have to share the enormous red chair with her. Never matter. It was more than large enough for the both of them if she could fold her limbs back in for a minute. "Shuffle on over then. Why do you need all these yards of fabric?" He marvelled at her skirt with all its petticoats.

It hurt to watch him so happy – so entirely unaware of what awaited him on one of those adventures. She did as he asked, folding her dress over to the other side so that he could fit. He was such a bloody spider though – all legs and arms. Missy ran her hand through his hair as he sat down, ruffling it all wrong. He jumped a little but he was getting used to her tactile behaviour.

And so they ate and he told her a story and the vault softened its lighting as the night wore on. He wasn't talking about the adventure any more. No, he'd moved onto his preferred topic. _The stars_.

"I'm sorry..." He finally whispered, after a moment of pause. "I'm sorry I threw a chair at you. I shouldn't have done that."

Missy was gazing at him with those unreadable eyes of hers. It didn't matter whether she was laughing or crying, he couldn't tell what she was thinking. She was as unknowable as those stars he loved.

"I started it," she admitted. "And in fairness I actually hit you."

"With the hat stand. I know. Still got the bruise."

Well actually Missy had meant the slap but that was the other Doctor. To hide her misstep, Missy reached for the Doctor's arm and rolled up his sleeve. He gave her a quizzical look that bordered on protest but in the end he let her push the fabric away until she found the aforementioned bruise. "Oh yes, you do rather."

"I probably deserved that. _Missy_..." This time he really did try to stop her but before he could move her lips brushed the darkened skin. Her tenderness was alarming. The Doctor didn't know what to do with it. Was it a trick? Was she broken? Is this what a malfunctioning Timelord looked like?

"Don't over think it..." She tugged his sleeve back down and released his arm. "Not everything is a trick, Doctor. I don't exist to torment you."

 _Wanna bet?_ He thought to himself. This was torment.

He hadn't realised that his eyes were closed until she felt her thumb trace across his eyebrows. They frowned immediately.

"They're cross again. You picked very cross eyebrows. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"They're _expressive_ ," he insisted. "Why are you touching them?"

"New face. I'm getting to know it."

"Oh… I've had this one for a while. _Missy..._ " He added again, as she turned around in the chair and deftly slid one of her legs over his. He felt her weight across his thighs as she straddled him – one hand on his shoulder.

"You're panicking again." Missy was simply trying to get a better look at him while he was like this. Happy. This is the face that she wanted to remember.

Missy stopped breathing.

The back of the Doctor's hand had brushed down the side of her cheek.

" _You're_ panicking..." He countered.


	6. Chapter 6

The vault door opened.

That's all that happened. No Doctor. No muttering-egg. No terrified companion. Just an open door. An invitation. A test? That all depended on which version of her Doctor waited on the other side. Was it her naive hopeful Scot or her emotionally destroyed, redemption-seeking Scotsman…

She decided on meeting him half way.

Missy set her glass of red down and slipped her jacket on. She sauntered over to the vault door and leaned up against the doorway, rubbing her shoulder against it for a moment before settling there. She could see the Tardis in front – lit by the soft glow of the university basement. Its lonely light on top a beacon of sorts – beckoning strays.

"Traps are my flirting..." She reminded the empty room. "So if this is a trap, consider me flattered."

A hand appeared – outstretched. The Doctor was standing to the side of the vault door and only now stepped into view so that she could see his eyes.

"Oh Doctor..." Missy purred, taking the offered hand. His big, sad eyes were as reckless as hers. "Won't you notice if the other you comes visiting and I'm not there?"

He cups his other hand tenderly around hers. "I _do_ notice..." He whispered back. "Could never work it out, you see – how you kept going missing. The vault was perfect. It's my resolve that wasn't. I tried everything. Changed passwords. Settings. Procedures but _you_ kept getting away."

Missy stepped out of the vault and the door swung closed behind them. They moved toward the Tardis. He snapped his fingers and its blue door opened.

"Show off."

"Always..." He countered.

When they were inside he set her free, allowing her to stroll around the Tardis. It was a relief – not to worry about what she was up to. Now that the Doctor knew how this story ended he realised that Missy never intended to betray him in the first place. That, above all her ravings and desires, she wanted to be his _friend_. Besides, the worst that could happen was that she'd escape him and change the future – a future where Missy was still alive. He didn't care if that broke a few laws of the universe. _He didn't give a shit._

"Where are we going?" Missy asked, laying her hand on the console.

Her hair isn't quite right and the Doctor is going to fix that by letting her have her curling irons back. "It's a surprise." He insists. "I've another one for you downstairs. Go on. Third door on the left after the swimming pool. You remember where that is."

She does and wanders off with a curious look. The Tardis hums at him, flickering a slightly brighter shade for a moment. He's not sure if it's approval or fear. Taking Missy out of the vault on adventures knowing full well that he can't save her might be the worst idea he's ever had and yet he can't stop himself. He's not going to let her last years be spent locked in punishment when so much of her failings were his fault.

Missy found the room easily. The Tardis had painted the door red for her which was an oddly affectionate thing for the ship to do. She was getting soft in her old age, clearly.

She leaned against the door first, wary of them now. Behind it she found a lush bedroom – softer and warmer than any she'd fashioned for herself over the years. The wardrobe, quite rightly, fanned across one side while the rest was decked out like a Parisian boudoir. _She loved it._ Missy spun around and around, grinning madly. She wasn't sure if the Doctor had done this or the Tardis herself.

"Ah – there you _are..._ " The Doctor trailed off as soon as Missy reappeared in the control room. He'd expected to find the Missy from the steps of St Paul's. She'd smoothed and curled her hair – of course but instead of hooking it up into an elaborate nest, Missy had let it fall loose to her shoulders and down her back. Every time she moved those curls bounced softly and caught the light in ways he didn't think possible. As for her outfit, she'd gone with a semi-sheer lace shirt worn under a black corset. The sleeves, trimmed in plum needlework, partially covered her hands while the black corset was plain except for the silver lacing at the back. Her skirt was the same colour as the detail on her sleeves but the skirts beneath were fuller. She carried a dark grey jacket with a black collar, cuffs and buttons for later.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going now?" Missy asked, fishing around for a pair of gloves and a scarf which clashed just enough to make her look eccentric.

"The – ah – thingy."

Missy narrowed her eyes.

"Medusa light galaxy sort of-"

"The Medusa Cascade." Missy helped. "Before or after the black hole?"

"Before. There's a-"

"Oh – the restaurant. You're taking me to dinner..."

"Breakfast. Five suns. It's – always breakfast."

The next time the Doctor sees her, Missy's wearing a new outfit. Grey, plum and black. He trips over his own feet as he walks into the vault and spills the cup of tea he'd been holding. It goes everywhere but he doesn't notice.

"Did Nardole bring you that?" He asked, setting the cup and saucer down with shaking hands.

Missy's eyes had a twinkle in them. "Nope."

"Bill? That can't be right." He quickly reasoned with himself. "It's an original piece. Unless she can time travel." Which left him with Missy wearing something she couldn't possibly have – again.

"Do you like it?" She asked him, standing up and giving him a twirl so that he could have a proper crisis.

The Doctor did the most sensible thing – flopping down into one of the new chairs he'd had brought in. He pressed his hand against his chest for a moment as his hearts fell out of sync. _He did like it_. "Yes but that's not the point."

Missy stopped twirling and mock-sulked. She knew what he tasted like. She knew how he trembled just a _little_ when their lips met. It was a secret. Her secret.

"Don't be like that," he begged. "I brought you tea." The Doctor frowned when he remembered that most of the tea was now in the saucer. "I tried to bring you tea."

"You brought me _you_."


	7. Chapter 7

There's a moment when she forgets which Doctor this is. They are laying on her bed in the vault – something that happens more often than Nardole would like – she's reading, he's flicking his fingers over the strings of his guitar. Missy's not sure if his idle notes qualify as music but she likes it all the same. They're erratic, like him and ever so slightly sad.

"Why a guitar?"

"Hmm…?" He looked over to her. Missy's nose remained buried in the book. _The Time Machine_. Of course she'd read that. "H. G. Wells."

Missy's eyebrows nearly met in the middle. She lowered her book and glanced in his direction. "You _didn't_ get your guitar from H. G. Wells..." Missy corrected. "Half a pint of gin, maybe."

"You're reading him again. Is that to vex me in particular?"

Actually – _no._ "I met him once or twice. Whispered a few pleasantries in his ear while he was sleeping." Missy enjoyed the way the Doctor's ears went red. He had no way of telling fact from fiction so he usually assumed the worst. "This one," she waved the book in his direction, "was written for me."

That gave the Doctor pause. He _knew_ that she had adventures without him. Whole lives that he knew nothing about. Of course she did. Being confronted with the reality though made his stomach twist in faint air of jealousy. _Stupid Doctor._

Missy found his overt jealousy amusing, especially as it was so wildly unfounded. She laid her book on the Doctor's chest and leaned over to him. It was only when she registered a curtain of panic in his eyes that she realised this was her young, innocent Doctor who'd simply come to share some music with her. She stopped short and grinned at him instead. "Drink?"

"Uh – yeah..." She slid off the bed leaving the Doctor to wonder if he'd been caught up in her lair. Her restraint and her warmth had him perplexed. It was as though she were genuinely being careful with him and he couldn't work out why. He certainly hadn't earned any such affection from her. If anything, she should still be hurling chairs at his head. "How did you get wine?'

Missy winked at him. She hadn't bothered with glasses.

When the Doctor took the bottle from her hands to open it he was even more confused. He was absolutely certain that it had come from his private cellar in the Tardis but that was impossible. Everything about Missy was impossible lately. Maybe she was simply a fiction – like a dream.

"Why are you frightened of me?" Missy asked, kneeling on the edge of the bed, keeping her distance.

The Doctor fumbled with the cork. "You've tried to kill me more than once."

"You've tried to kill me..." She countered – pausing as the cork came out. "And I don't go on like you're some kind of piranha."

The Doctor rested the wine between his legs. He had to move the guitar, resting it on the side of the bed where Missy had been laying. She'd left the bedspread all rumpled and creased and his hand lingered on it a moment asserting that her presence was in fact real.

Missy clicked her fingers to catch his attention. "Zoned out again."

He held the bottle up, eyeing it carefully but there was no graceful way of drinking it so steeled himself and took a swig. _That was definitely his wine._ Why did Missy have his wine?

* * *

The Tardis is quiet. Missy's been exploring her new wardrobe and now the Doctor is absolutely certain that she's conspiring with his machine because this particular arrangement she's presented him with today is nothing shy of a nova in his soul.

"Are you _actually_ going swimming because the pool is three corridors over. As you well know."

That didn't stop her sauntering through the library, of course. She'd gone for a white, sixties-styled two piece swim suit that he was absolutely _certain_ belonged to Ursula Andress. A flowing, half-hearted attempt at a jacket threatened to fall from her shoulders while a ridiculous floppy beach hat and dark sunglasses sought to – _wait._

"Are those my sonic sunglasses?"

Missy reached up and knocked them gently so that they slipped down her nose a little. Now all he could see where her crystal eyes, as blue as the waters of _Triychi_.

"You are _not_ keeping those."

"Finders keepers…?"

"That rule doesn't apply if you've fished them out of my jacket pocket." He pointed out. "Now I'm going to have to work out how to give them back to my former self. Thank _you_ for that challenge." She really was naughty. Missy didn't even want his sonic shades – all she wanted was to create a bit of chaos. "When did you steal them anyway?"

Missy pushed them back up the bridge of her nose. "You were trying to open a bottle of wine in the vault. I picked up your guitar. In your hurry to save it from my clutches, I nicked them."

He vaguely remembered that. "Well… You be careful – I might need those."

"So?"

The Doctor frowned. "So _what_?" He asked, perplexed.

"Are you coming or not?" The Doctor was giving her blank looks which could only mean that he had genuinely forgotten. "Beach Party on Triychi. You – me – ten thousand revellers welcoming that comet as it crashes into their sister planet. Hell of a light show. Mediocre cocktails. _You promised_."

 _Oh that._ "Will there be little coloured umbrellas in the glasses?"

"Yes, I imagine so."

"Why the hat?" He asked, pointing at the floppy thing on her head. "The planet exists in permanent twilight."

Missy blinked at him slowly like he'd devolved into a single celled life form. "Fashion..." She drawled slowly. "And don't think you're wearing _that_."

"What's wrong with this?" He gave himself a quick once over. He was wearing clothes and that was more than could be said for her.

"The Tardis has laid something out for you."

He dreaded to think. "You two are on speaking terms now, huh?"

Missy grinned. "This is to our mutual benefit."

He sighed dramatically. _This is my own fault._


	8. Chapter 8

They're breathless. It's miles to the Tardis but they can both see it, parked on top of the hill lit by a fragment of moonlight. Nothing but wild cliffs painted in ink and the distant clash of battle. Missy wondered why he always did that – parked the bloody thing in the middle of everything. He'd never been very good at hiding or blending in. He called that cyan monstrosity 'camouflage' but she called it 'attention seeking'.

"What are you doing down there?" The Doctor asked, appearing in front of her on the steep incline of grass. He was kneeling amongst it, picking her up off the ground where she'd ended up tangled in her own ridiculous outfit.

The grass was like pine needles and she slipped twice more before before her heels dug into something solid. "When I said 'Scotland' I didn't mean 1298!"

A cloud casually covered the moon and set the world into absolute pitch. The temperature dropped. A mist swirled up from the marsh below the mountain and Missy pressed into his chest. The Doctor wasn't sure what to do so he held her.

"Why'd you take your accent from here? That's a Roman face."

"How do you know that?" He asked softly, resting his chin on the top of her head. Her hair is soft but even her perfect curls smell like cinnamon and he's never worked out why that is. Every regeneration. She never really changed. _Then he realises it's not cinnamon – it's grass. Red grass and silver leaves._ Missy smells like home.

"I went back and had a look," Missy whispered, sliding her hands inside his coat where it was warm. Cold. Always cold. One step from the grave. "Trust you to pick the face of an art gallery curator. All those marble statues. I had quite the time."

He _really_ didn't want to hear any more of that story. Missy is so small that his hands have knit together at the base of her spine. No corset today – just a kilt the same colour as the hills and heavy leather straps holding it in place. He forgets that about her. He promises to remember. She's _fragile_.

"Don't think about it..." Missy whispered, all of a sudden. There's distant thunder and a wandering storm lurking over a far away ocean. Darkness – it's like space and the fires of the battle are stars raging in silence. "I don't want to know how it happens."

"I wasn't..." He lied.

"Yes, you were." Missy turned her head so that she was looking the other way. Cracks of light ripped through the darkness. They made her tremble. She felt his arms tighten around her. "Careful – you're going to -"

Missy had felt it before he had – the slip of mud beneath their feet and the inevitable pull of gravity. For someone who claimed to know so much about the unshakeable force he certainly spent a lot of time on his arse.

He landed first, slipping a few feet down the hill before her weight brought them both to a stop. The Doctor couldn't see her but he could feel Missy's eyes boring into him. Now he can feel the rhythmic thud from her chest. "Are we crashing together or falling apart?" He asked.

Missy is so surprised that he hasn't immediately thrown her off that the question startles her. _What a question._ For her, it was happening at the same time. A paradox. A twin reality of hope and certainty. "Both..." she whispered, against his ear.

Now he's trembled. The Doctor can't bear her truth but in the darkness no one sees him cry.

"We can't stay here..." He eventually admits. She's shuffled around on top of him, settled there as though he were one of her couches. The storm was clawing its way toward them – braving the wild mountains that he knew lay somewhere in the darkness behind. It's rained once or twice and she's colder than ever.

"Why not?"

"Can't you hear them? There are people with swords nearby. Angry – slightly short – people."

"Well – you growl and I'll hiss." She mumbled into his chest.

This time he smiles. Maybe she's even serious. "You know," he adds, letting his fingers tangle in her hair. One of the clouds has shifted and although there's no moon he can see a star or two. "I can't even remember what we were running from."

The question hangs and suddenly they're not talking about a bit of swordplay in the Highlands.

"I wasn't running," Missy confessed. All those thousands of years ago and she remembers every moment. "I was _following_ you."

* * *

"H-how is there _mud_?" The Doctor circled the floor. There are Missy-sized footprints all over the marble. He follows them – round and round – like a chicken hunting a grasshopper. Eventually he looks up and finds her dressed like a temptress from the cover of a Scottish-themed romance novel and still all he can think to say is, "You're wearing reading glasses?"

She is. A fine combination of silver and half-moon lenses. They rather clash with her current attire but needs must.

"Well noticed." Missy replied. He'd missed the headline, of course.

That last drop off was a bit rushed. She'd have to have a word to her other Doctor next time he popped around.

"Why do you have glasses?" He was utterly puzzled and took a few cautious steps toward her. She was still dripping – all over the piano (which he'd told her _so many times_ not to sit on).

Her reply was a wicked grin. "We _match_."

"You're all Scottish."

"That too." Missy let the Doctor stand there for a good ten minutes before she realised that his circuits have shorted out. She tossed him a bone. "Falkirk."

That prompts some movement. One of the eyebrows at least. "As in Braveheart..."

"Aye. Thought maybe we could go one day."

"Go _where_ though?" The Doctor walked right up to the piano. The blue light flickered harmlessly between them. Is that why she was dressed like this? "No one knows where that battle happened." He doesn't come any closer. There's something electric about her today and he's not sure he trusts it. "I can't let you out of the vault."

"Not in a thousand years?" She looked up at him through her glasses.

"A thousand years is a long time," he admitted. "Anything could happen."

Missy knows her time isn't measured in years any more and gives him a sad smile that he doesn't understand.


	9. Chapter 9

That's when the crying started.

Memories weren't like a book. She _hated_ that analogy. They were an ocean and he was the tide. His wild adventures had eroded the breakwalls in her mind and now she could feel the waters dragging her out to sea. Perhaps she'd drown. That's what this felt like. Her tears and his silence fuelled the cataclysm.

Sometimes he just sat there, pretending to read a comic while she stared into the false-light of the window. Her tears ran hot. Mascara burned her eyes until there was nothing left. It was all a faded river on her cheek when she turned back to him.

Her young Doctor – but he's getting older now. Missy can see the sadness creeping into his eyes and she wonders if a time will come when she can't tell them apart.

He lowered the magazine and she could feel his desire to turn away. She wondered what he saw in her. Hope – perhaps. Regret? More than likely. Or maybe it was simply pain. They'd shared enough of that over the aeons.

The tears are like scars. They don't hurt but the Doctor can see them. He asks what's wrong and she fishes for a lie.

"I remember their names," said Missy. "I didn't know that I ever knew them." And she doesn't. The Doctor tells her that this is good and that might have been true if _she'd_ told the truth. She didn't and it's not. Mostly all she feels is emptiness and the approach of night.

She heard his chair grind at the floor and he's standing up – intent on coming to her. Missy rose first and retreated to the piano, wishing for once that the forcefield was actually a cage.

"Now who's running."

For a moment she _hates_ him. It's reflected in her eyes. Another of her mixed messages but she doesn't know how to filter them out. "It's only running if I don't come back. Like stealing." The Doctor tilts his head and she wonders what he's thinking. Her answer comes in a hand – outstretched and steady. _How easily he shifts from the sand to the mountain._

Missy took his hand and felt the gentle tug, guiding her back down the stairs.

"This is my fault," the Doctor whispered, when she was back on the floor – hand in hand with him. "I was so sure that you'd leave me that I ran first. That's how much I hate endings."

Missy dried her tears and pulled the Doctor to a stop. She made him turn and face her. "Let me get this straight," she scorned, "because this is worth getting straight. In order to avoid an end to our friendship you ended it prematurely?"

"I thought if we didn't say goodbye then it'd always be there."

"You're an _idiot_." Missy was unspeakably cross with him. "A romantic fool. I should blame the poetry – filling your head with all those fatalistic notions of bitter-sweet love. The Timelords who wrote those platitudes to darkness were busy numbing themselves with liquor and vapour – not scooting about the universe in a magic box. I may have done terrible things, Doctor, but at least I was honest. I was _there_ when you burned Gallifrey. Or you thought you did. You _believed_ I was there. I could _never_ do that to you. Don't you remember what I told you?"

"Love is a promise… I remember."

"Do you remember where we were when I taught you that?"

The Doctor looked to his ludicrously oversized feet. That was another habit that stayed with him no matter how many times he changed his face. "I'd run away again. You found me, middle of the night, sitting in the long grass."

"A mess, you were..."

"We were only children," he realised, lifting his eyes to hers. Same eyes. "I said you were going to get into trouble if they found you there with me."

"You were already in trouble," Missy smiled softly. "I heard them yelling your name as I snuck out."

"And you promised," he continued, really looking at her now – as though he'd finally understood something important, "that if I was ever in trouble you'd be there to drag me out of it because..." Even now he couldn't say it. "Is that why you're crying?" He added, carefully.

Missy never answered him.

* * *

There's a draft in the Tardis.

The Doctor was mildly alarmed, considering they were in space hovering near a new solar system. He was still basking in his own brilliance. In the six-month stint with the monks messing with Earth he'd been able to sneak Missy off on an extended adventure to Alpha Kikuu where they'd accidentally ended up ruling a small land. Missy was thrilled and he made no move to stop her lording about the odd stone palaces chipped into the cliffs with all her yards of silk and fire-gems. There were still a few of them left dotted around the Tardis. It had been good for her. A taste of her old life but without the murdering. She'd found other ways to entertain herself – and him.

He entered the control room and found her sitting on the edge of the open doors. In front of her reached the abyss of space and at its heart, an enormous white star. Missy was simply gazing at it. Watching the white fire churn and arc over its surface.

The Doctor approached carefully, clearing his throat so that he didn't startle her. "Whatcha doing…?"

Missy didn't move. Her eyes were fixed on the star and her head tilted ever so slightly as though she were listening to something. "Come sit with me."

He did, folding himself into the space behind her, propped up against the door frame. He was sure that Missy leaned back against him.

"How did you fly the Tardis without me?" He asked, quite seriously. "We were in orbit around one of the planets – not the star."

"I didn't." Missy replied. "I thought about the star and the Tardis brought me here. She does what she likes. You know that."

What was worrying the Doctor was how acquiescent the Tardis was to Missy's whims. It was as if it knew something he didn't. "Okay." He was prepared to accept that. "Why were you thinking about the star?"

"I could hear it." Missy shrugged. Then she made one of her famous melodramatic impressions with her hand, mimicking the star's heartbeat. "Thumping away. All that noise in the silence." Missy turned and looked at the Doctor. He was closer than she'd expected and his clear eyes – startling. "Can't you hear it?"

The Doctor shook his head slowly. He heard sad tunes of music echo from the depths of the universe. He never heard the rush of violence as stars lived and died. "You can hear the stars?" She nodded in reply. "All of them? _All the time?_ "

"I hear the truth," she replied, very softly. If anything, she pressed her head a little more into his shoulder and felt his arm wrap around her waist in reply. "I hear the nebular whooshing around proto-stars, black holes tearing apart solar systems, galaxies colliding and others burning up. I hear the faint hum of the quantum fluctuations around us."

"I hear music."

Missy was caught between a smile and sigh. "This is music. I've learned that now." She felt his eyebrows frown so she elaborated. "I used to think it was just noise. It drove me a little mad, I think."

"A little..."

Her eyes scorned him.


	10. Chapter 10

Walking back into the vault after spending months with the Doctor was much harder than Missy expected. After he's gone and the doors are closed she remembers exactly how barren this bloody box is. It's meant to be a punishment. She knows that. Six steel walls and a thousand years with herself for company.

Solitude is the furthest thing from her mind. Oddly, she's never had _more_ company in her life because the Doctor can't help himself. He kept popping in, every chance he got. When he vanishes for a week or two she panics – not about the loneliness – about him. He's gone and gotten himself into trouble somewhere and she's not free to help him. The Doctor's put his backup plan in a vault. Like an idiot.

 _Knock. Knock._

Missy frowned. He didn't knock. He just kind of – entered unannounced whenever he felt like it. When Nardole and the companion-snack entered instead Missy perked up like a cat with a pair of clueless mice. They wanted her help with the monks. The boringly easy monks.

A little later, her young Doctor is back with a coat that's seen better days. It's all faded, frayed and torn.

"A wardrobe the size of the Thames and you insist on wearing that old thing..." She playfully snarls.

The Doctor's trying hard not to blush while the others watch on – silent questions hanging in the air everywhere like swords. "Focus, Missy. Monks. Save Earth. Plan?"

She fashions a list of ridiculous demands first. The worst that can happen is that she gets a pony out of it.

When it's all said and done the Doctor comes and sits in the vault, staring at her while she plays the piano.

The Doctor has worked out what unsettles him about the vault. It's not _lived in_. He was gone for six months and the books are still in the same place he left them, the cups are on the sink from their last morning tea and the chairs are exactly as before. Something's going on but he can't work out what so he stares at her while she plays.

"You look different..." He started, quietly.

"Changed my hair." She replied, without looking up. This part of the song was difficult and she'd not spent as much time practising as she should.

"Six months on your own. That's a long time." He continued. "I'm sorry."

Her fingers took a misstep and the song was ruined. "Not your fault." Missy swivelled around on her chair. The Doctor was occupying the large, black seat – well he'd _collapsed_ into it. He looked dreadful. Exhausted. "You were a prisoner of the monks. Besides, I don't mind being alone. I spent ten years in a cave once."

"Why'd you do that?" His eyebrows went in different directions.

"I was searching for the meaning of life."

The Doctor scoffed and a moment later they were both laughing. She lied as easily as he did – usually for comic effect – or to hide the damage.

"You don't look well," Missy continued, still perched on the piano stool. She could come down and join him any time she liked but today she sensed that he needed space. If she pounced he might break. "Did those monks forget to feed you?"

"No. Well – yes but that's not why." He pinched a twitching nerve in the centre of his forehead then ran his hand back through his hair. It had grown quite a bit and was as unruly as ever. "Bill – my companion – you've met her a few times," the Doctor added, just in case she hadn't been paying attention to his friends. "She sacrificed herself to save the world and it was only a fluke of the universe that she survived the act. Why do they keep doing that? Humans. They're so reckless with their lives."

"You're reckless," Missy pointed out, more serious than usual.

"I have lives to burn."

"Mmm..." she very nearly purred – in thought rather than seduction. "But you're their teacher and they learn. Humans. Race of sponges."

She was right. It was one of her more vexing properties. "I wish they'd be more like you – careful, considered. You come off as chaos and noise but all of it orchestrated. You think I don't notice but I do."

Now she was smiling fondly. "Well maybe I'm running out of lives."

The Doctor's hearts faltered. He hadn't thought to ask… "Regeneration?" He asked.

"Now that _would_ be telling…" Missy spun around on the seat and started playing again, only this time it was a sad song.

* * *

"No adventures today, Doctor?" Missy asked, when he strolled into the vault. "The other you is off gallivanting about on Mars with the snacks so I thought we could go too. Of course if we go I want to visit _before_ the ice caps evaporate. That purple sea is quite a sight and the floating islands… Oh I love those. I'll get my hat..."

"Not today, Missy," the Doctor held up his hand to stop her fussing.

"Why ever not? You _always_ take me out and-" Missy noticed that he was nearly crying – eyes shining like oceans at night. "How long have you been gone..."

"A while." He replied darkly.

Missy stalked towards him, her boots clicking over the marble floor. She stopped when there was a few feet remaining between them. "Answer the question properly. I'm not one of your pets."

"Twenty years."

" _Whaaaat!_ " She hissed, both shocked, angered and deeply concerned. "Why ever did you do that? Did you find a new playmate..."

He shook his head. "Nothing like that."

Missy was on the verge of ranting at him when she caught a different look cross that face of his. It was the eyebrows. They gave away his secrets without him even knowing. "Oh… You were..." _He was trying to find a way to change the future. Trying to save her without tearing reality apart._ "You mustn't do that, Doctor." Missy finished, very softly. She reached forward and placed her hand tenderly on his chest. His hearts were still there, beating. "You really mustn't."

A pair of tears fell from his eyes, so heavy they skipped over his cheeks and landed on his lapels. Missy brushed them off the fabric as though they were rain.

"You listen to me, Doctor," she fussed with his weary suit. "Whatever the universe has in store for me will come to pass and you must let it. The death of a Timelord is as fixed as fixed points get..."

He tried to stop her speaking. "Missy – you're not going to-"

"I see it – in your eyes. That's why you're sulking around in my vault – eking every last breath out of me. I watch you walk through that door – past and present – young and old – and the two of you are merging together. It can't be long now."

He wasn't even able to speak. Instead he stood there while she straightened his collar.

"So – why don't we go to Mars?"

"I wish we could but on this occasion you have to stay in the vault and I can't be here. That is just how it is."

"I have a question."

"All right..." The Doctor replied, trying to compose himself. It was difficult knowing that this was the last time he'd look at her. He was trying to transcribe her into his memory. A perfect copy.

"Why do you always leave the vault door open? Are you hoping that I'll run away? _If_ I run away, Doctor, we never do _this_. Those adventures evaporate. The stars unravel."

It was only then that the Doctor realised that this indulgence of his was the thing trapping Missy in the vault – almost luring her to her fate. If he'd been cruel then maybe she'd be alive _and it killed him_.

He was crying again and Missy found it hard to look at him. "You always make me close the door. If that's your way of giving me a choice you've thoroughly misunderstood the definition of _choice_." Missy moved closer, leaning against him now with her hands on his shoulders. He did nothing to stop her. "How could I ever leave when it's not the door that's keeping me here?"

"Missy _no_..." He begged. He didn't want to hear that.

Missy _knew_ that he was never coming back – not this Doctor. "I don't want to say goodbye." She barely breathed her reply. Both his hands cupped her face – more tender than she'd ever felt. How was he so warm when ice clung to her soul?

"Then _don't_." The Doctor replied. He found him moving toward her – drawn by the invisible threads that seemed to bind their lives together. At first, he simply rested his cheek against hers and their tears blended together. She shuddered, her resolve faltering but he caught her with a quick turn of his head – distracting her with a kiss.

 _This was something they did now_. Missy was sure their kisses could topple worlds. They were all consuming as four hearts fought to find a rhythm. _He was saying goodbye._ She could feel it in her soul – see ghostly images in her mind of their lives filtering through their telepathic link. He'd locked her out for so long but there were cracks in his resolve.

"What if I can't do it?" She asked, as they both drew back to breathe. "I want to live..."

The Doctor could not even speak.


	11. Chapter 11

When the Doctor was in trouble Missy _felt_ it. Right there, between her hearts. It was the rush of free-fall and promise of the rocks. She always had. No matter what parsec of the universe or moment in time she'd find him and drag his arse out of whichever mess he'd created – usually from his own sentimental stupidity. Minor affrays were all part of the parcel when you were friends with the Doctor but _true_ danger was different. She was always at his side when he needed her the most.

...the reverse was not true.

Perhaps he simply couldn't feel her the way she did. In fact, this was the first time that he seemed to truly care about her survival and she wondered if it was because he could sense this was her last rodeo. No more lives. She'd burned them all as she burned the stars.

Dying.

Such an abstract concept to a Timelord. Death was for other people. Except when it wasn't.

Outside the vault, she noticed a ruffle in time. The Tardis was landing, setting herself down without the usual wheezing of the handbrake. Alarmed, Missy scurried over to the door and pressed her ear against the surface. The Doctor wasn't due back from Mars for ages and her other one was never coming back… This must be the surprise he was talking about. The reason he had to leave her here alone.

"What are you up to, old girl?" Missy mused, as she listened to the Tardis dig her heals in and refuse to fly away. Whomever was at the controls, it was certainly not the Doctor.

" _Hello?"_ Came Nardole's voice through the vault door. _"Hello – Miss?"_

Insufferable egg. Why...

* * *

" _What are you playing at?"_ She whispered to the Tardis, when Nardole wasn't paying attention. There was absolutely nothing wrong but for some reason she'd high-tailed it back to Earth and picked up Missy. _"You're a bit mental – I hope you know that. I mean the Doctor – he's… and I'm bonkers but I think I might check below deck because something's come loose on you I'm sure of it. He won't thank you for it either. He doesn't like it when we wander off and that includes you."_

"Who are you talking to?" Nardole peeked around the side of the centre tube.

"Evil spirits," Missy replied, if only to ruffle his feathers.

Missy might not harbour any malicious intent on this occasion but she couldn't resist the temptation of tormenting the egg a little more. She dragged her gloved hands over the Tardis controls. Spent longer than required staring at screens cluttered with Gallifreyan text. She even gave him a wink – one of her more disconcerting actions.

"The Doctor must be in _serious_ trouble for this to happen. Serious indeed!" Nardole ranted. He still couldn't believe what he'd done – letting Missy out of the vault. That was probably the biggest mistake in the universe and he did his best not to show how terrified he was of her. In captivity she seemed tame, benevolent even but in the wild she was a predator. He could see it in her eyes.

"The Doctor's _fine_..." She drawled.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know when he's not." She replied simply, without offering any other information.

Nardole cleared his throat. He did not understand the murky waters between the Doctor and Missy. All he knew was that she'd burn galaxies for him and he'd take apart the universe for her and that wasn't a good thing. It was completely irrational. Bloody terrifying really. "Can we go back to Mars now?"

"We're not going anywhere." Missy let that hang in the air just long enough to stir a bit of panic, "Until I have a look at the engines. The Tardis came to me because the Doctor hasn't given her a check up in half a millennia. Poor old girl. Can't you feel it?" Missy pressed her gloved hand to the console and closed her eyes. "She's crying."

"Wait – so… You're going to do maintenance? No no no… That wasn't the deal."

"You didn't make a deal." Missy pointed out. "You asked for help and I'm helping. This is a _Time Machine_." She purred, as if he hadn't quite grasped that concept. "I could twist bolts down there for ten thousand years and it wouldn't matter."

"Please don't do that."

"You – run along and do whatever it is that you do – if you do anything – make tea, I don't know – or follow me if that's your inclination. I'm going below deck to see what this cracked panel is all about."

* * *

Nardole was _very_ unhappy about this turn of events but, as he tailed Missy into the depths of the Tardis, he realised that she was right. The ship was in disrepair. The Doctor was so busy bounding about through the universe with strays that he never stopped to see the damage.

As Missy walked, she reached up to brush her hand over a loose cord that had fallen down. She cooed at the machine that appeared to hum back at her. She'd put a few of these scars here herself but the Doctor hurt her more than Missy ever had. Timelords were by their nature reckless – the Doctor more than most.

" _What a mess he's left you in..."_ Missy whispered, and realised that the Doctor did that to all his friends. She was a _disaster_ held together with steel, velvet and mania. "This is what I'm talking about," she added, pointing at the hairline fissures in the walls either side of them as they moved through the service corridor. They were getting closer to the core. She could hear the star at the heart, spinning, pulsing, trembling… The Tardis had her own music and it was sad.

"Is that bad?"

Her eyes got even wider – fierce and blue. "Well it's not good. If they get any deeper a good whack might split them apart and leave half the ship in the void."

"That – doesn't sound good."

"No. Leaving your rear hanging in the abyss is generally speaking a poor life choice." Missy sighed. If the Tardis hadn't come to her for repairs it might have only lasted a few more trips. "No wonder she came to me."

Missy stopped when she reached the main engine deck and shook her head in despair. Honestly, he should have taken better care of his Tardis. He was meant to be a Timelord but then, she was the one who paid attention through university, not him. He'd been too busy roaming the fields and staring at the stars to notice the detail.

"Do you make tea – or something?" She asked the creature trailing her. "Because I'm going to be down here a while."

Nardole felt himself becoming more sympathetic to the murderous psychopath which was as unsettling as it was disheartening. Is this what happened to the Doctor? Did Missy wear away at people with moments of compassion then rip the carpet away to reveal a knife? "Any particular tea?"

"Surprise me." Missy replied. "The Doctor keeps trying to make me tea but he always spills it on the way into the vault. I've not had a decent cup in years."

"Mmm he is a bit uncoordinated with all those limbs. I think that last regeneration went a bit wrong with the proportions."

* * *

Alone on the deck, Missy spent longer than she should staring into the heart of the Tardis. The star contained in the time vortex burned bright and strong. It was still young and vibrant, full of adventures unwritten. It was only her shell that was cracking.

Hours – no, it was days at least. Nardole kept leaving her tea (and now biscuits) at the door. She was too focused on the repairs to pay him more than a fleeting snarl. She'd changed into black overalls, set her hair in a bun to keep it out of the wiring and switched her leather gloves for silver cloth ones. The assembly did little to stop the layers of grease and dust building up on her face.

" _He doesn't mean to leave you like this,"_ Missy continued to talk to the Tardis. She swore that it talked back sometimes – not in words but with the slight brightening of her lights or the faint metallic pulse of the engines which were sounding better as the days passed. _"He simply doesn't know how to fix you. Never much of an engineer but you knew that when you stole him."_ Another soft pulse of the lights. _"Is that why you ran home to me? Last of Timelords – not much of a choice, aye?"_

Missy's hands stilled on the control panel.

" _Oh – of course..."_ She breathed softly. _"This is your last chance for a bit of maintenance before I… Fair play, old girl. I guess I owe it to you anyway."_

But that really did cement the horrible reality in her mind. She was approaching her death with such finality that even the Tardis, who inhabited all of reality, knew it was over.

" _I'll make sure I do a good job."_

Missy could have sworn that the Tardis was bending the rules of time for her own advantage. Months were passing in the engine decks and only hours in Nardole's kitchen. While they were down there the Tardis dimmed her lights and turned the ceiling of the enormous dome into a curtain of stars. Galaxies hung above, barely moving. Sometimes it changed and the sky turned umber. A city glistened in the distance and Missy said, _'no'_ very quietly. It disintegrated, replaced by the purple oceans of Mars she hadn't been able to visit. Earth loomed in the distance – a tiny blue dot.

" _Please, don't be nice to me."_ Missy muttered, fumbling with a particularly tricky circuit. _"It confuses me."_

The Tardis didn't listen and transformed the room into the wiles of Scotland complete with foreboding mountains and a cold mist that made her crumple against the wall and weep.


	12. Chapter 12

Missy hid behind the Tardis console. Tardis pulsed protectively around Missy as the Doctor stepped through the doors and fixed her with a sharp, cold and untrusting gaze.

Much later, he'd sent his extras home leaving only the two of them, eye to eye in the Tardis library. Her young Doctor and those big, terrified eyes of his. At least he'd changed out of that antique spacesuit.

"You are trying to tell me that the Tardis – my Tardis – ran away to Earth to pick you up?" He started slowly, not quite believing his own words. "That doesn't make any sense, Missy." This was a trick of hers. After all this time he'd thought – no _believed_ that she was starting to change. Wrong again. Idiot. "What did you do?" He added, sharply.

Missy flinched away from is tone, hiding in the shadows of the library. There was a big, brown leather armchair nearby which she scooted over to and clutched at it from behind. "I fixed her."

Her words bounced off the Doctor, unheard. "What have you done?"

"I told you," she snipped back, like a wounded animal backed into a corner. "Go see for yourself."

There are bruises up and down her arms that he'll never see from where she beat herself against the wall, howling at the universe. Raging against time itself. The Tardis had engaged in a bit of therapy of her own, forcing Missy to relive cherished memories she thought lost to past regenerations. It had hurt her worse than any blade or cruel word from his lips.

"You sent me your confession dial." Missy added, out of nowhere. She stepped from the shadows and closed in on him, braver. There were smudges of dirt at the edge of her neck which she'd missed.

"What does that have to do with anything?" His eyebrows bent awkwardly.

"I thought you were dead."

"No. You didn't." He replied. The Doctor wasn't exactly sure why he was angry with her. It wasn't like she'd broken out of the vault or done anything noticeably wrong for decades. Seeing her free had set him off balance. Perhaps it was fear that made him angry.

"Do _not_ presume to tell me what I believed." Now she was angry too but her fury was coming from a deeper place inside her soul. There were darks pits there that even he was hesitant to tread. "I should have taken that stupid thing with me when I left. There's a reason we're not allowed to keep our own confession dials."

The Doctor frowned. "Missy?"

"Four and a half billion years? I heard what you did." And it tasted bitter between her lips.

"That has nothing to do with you. It was between me and the Timelords."

"You died. Over and over and over. For a distraction that I gave you. Do you even know how many times?"

He knew it was enough to create an ocean of skulls with vacant sockets staring at the prison. He closed that door in his mind. That was a room he'd never enter. "Missy – what on _earth_ are you talking about?"

She clenched her fist and slammed it against her chest. _"I. Felt. It."_ She switched to Gallifreyan, then pointed at the Tardis. _"She felt it!"_

He offered her no comfort. The other Doctor would have. He'd have stepped in and folded her into his arms. Not him. He was jaded by their past and she couldn't even find it in herself to blame him. Had they really done this much damage to each other? Was it irreparable? The Doctor was all she had and there were times, like this, where she was sure that her very existence made him ill.

Missy turned and stormed out of the library. He stared, fixed in shock for a moment before following her through the Tardis. His machine was making shortcuts, offering Missy the fastest route to the control room. At the front door he caught up with her and reached for her arm, tugging her back.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the vault!" She growled, shaking him free.

"Well that's – that's what I was going to-"

"I know!" Missy slammed the Tardis door in his face forcing him to open it again to follow her. She wasn't lying. She crossed the basement and stepped into the vault.

"Missy – Missy _wait_..." The Doctor hadn't finished with her yet. He had so many questions – like what the hell had she done to his Tardis but that door slammed in his face as well. He was left, nose to steel. "Missy..." He knew that she was there, pressed against the other side of the door. Behind him, the Tardis was pulsing the light, furious with him. Had he made a mistake? Probably. Okay – definitely but he was still angry with Missy. "I know you're there."

 _It was so hard._ She missed the other Doctor. He'd pushed through his rage while this doctor was revelling in it. Her fault. She knew. Missy had cried wolf so many times this must have looked like another one of her schemes to him. "Of _course_ I'm here. It's a bloody box!"

That was a fair point and the Doctor felt like an idiot. It served to cut a few layers of frost from his temper. "Tell me what you did to the Tardis. Tell me the truth and I promise I won't be angry." He swallowed, realising how ridiculous that sounded while he was shouting. The Doctor took a deep breath, shuffled closer to the vault door and placed both his hands on it. This time, he words were softer. "Please. No more lies."

Missy slid down the other side of the door until she was curled up against it.

The Doctor mimicked her without knowing why, sitting with his back against the door.

"You are the one that's lying." Missy whispered in reply.

"When did I lie?" He replied, softer.

"Always." Missy pressed her nails against the steel, waiting to see if they snapped. "You lied about your hearts. Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

The Doctor placed his hand flat across his chest. His hearts were there, beating but slightly out of step. Every now and then they caught up to each other, pounding at the same time. It was enough to make him stumble. Sooner or later… "No. I knew you'd notice." He admitted.

"It was the machine that was meant to kill me, wasn't it? Of course it was..." Missy didn't need to hear his reply.

"I fiddled with the settings."

"Obviously not enough." She replied sharply. "Did you know it would happen?"

The Doctor banged his head gently back against the vault door. His hair was wildly out of control as if trying to escape his dying body. "I had a hunch."

They sat in silence for a very long time – alone with their thoughts.

Eventually Missy moved first, standing up and straightening her skirt. "Open the door." It took him a while but soon it swung open and she was left facing him and his big sad eyes. Her young Doctor but with the right set of eyes. She had wrongly assumed it was her death that changed him but it wasn't, it was this – talking. There were too many things unsaid between them and perhaps that had been their problem all along. "That face..." she started. "I kinda liked it."

The Doctor touched his face self-consciously. "This old thing?"

"Sometimes I forget that we wear somebody else's face to cheat death."

At her words, the Doctor lowered his hand. The truth was _horrific_ when she put it that way.

"But I remember the face you were born with," she added. "And they look the same to me."

This time it's her hand on his face and the Doctor allows it. "You can see me – the old me?"

He was _so stupid_ sometimes. "It's _all_ you, Doctor."

The Doctor wasn't sure what they were going to do. Missy was standing there, brushing her thumb gently down across his lips and he felt his body warm. She was bold with him. Familiar, even. Another impossibility because he deliberately kept her at arm's reach. "Did you really fix my Tardis?"

Missy nodded. "Ask her."

"I will," he replied, because he wasn't prepared to take her word on faith just yet.


	13. Chapter 13

_Notes: I recommend you venture over to youtube and listen to the song Missy is playing on the piano in the final scene. It's called, 'Kissing You' performed by Des'Ree. Youtube extensions: Instrumental: F5Asyi5peUE and if you really have no value for your heart here it is with lyrics: RTLoTD1AnBE_

 _We're two chapters from the end. If you're wondering why this is so bloody fast it's because I'm trying to finish this before the final episode on Saturday._

* * *

"Oh Missy..."

The Doctor was a world class moron. She _had_ fixed his Tardis and such a beautiful job she'd done of it too.

He lingered on the thin strip of quartz that bridged two platforms, gazing up at the dome inside the heart of the Tardis. The pink rock beneath his feet quivered with the healthy pulse of the star while the walls transformed into a forest of silver leaves, rustling with a distant tide. His spaceship was _happy_ and for once Missy was the cause.

"I know. _I know_." He replied to the Tardis. She was badgering him, quite rightly. There was no need. The Doctor knew what he had to do now. It was as though the way forward had been opened. Missy _was_ changing and he'd been too blind to see it.

"We were just on Mars..." Bill complained, several hours later, opening the door to find the red expanse of rust lazily blowing from one horizon to the next.

"Ah, yeah. So?" The Doctor narrowed his eyes, tilting awkwardly to catch a look at the world through the door. "Hmm… Too late. Close the door again, please."

Bill did as he asked but not without a deepening suspicion in her question look. "You're not very good with the 'time' part of this equation, are you? That's your fourth landing attempt."

"You're counting?"

"Yep."

Humans. They were annoying like that.

"It would be easier," Bill continued, "if you gave me a hint so I could let you know when you're getting warmer."

"Open the door again."

Bill looked at him warily. There was something wrong with the Doctor. He was skittish, panicky and dare she say it _desperate_. "Purple water. Is that what you were going for?" His frowned shifted to a grin like lightning. "What's going on with you, Doctor?" Bill asked. "You've been like this ever since Missy got out of the vault. Did she do something to your Tardis?"

The Doctor was flipping switches all over the place, making sure that they were properly parked. It was a bit trickier than normal, parking on the surface of the ocean. Didn't want to go falling through it or anything unfortunate. "She fixed it."

"Are you sure? That doesn't sound like a very evil-psychopath thing to do."

"Missy isn't evil. I've seen evil." The Doctor replied, as he scurried around the room looking for things.

 _Erratic._ That's what he was. "Personally, I think she might have given you a bit of a whack on the head. You're acting like-" Bill decided not to finish that sentence. Being cruel wasn't going to help anyone and he was far from the first fool on the path to heartache. "You haven't even told me who she is."

"I'm sure I did. Missy. Short for Mistress. Used to be Master."

"Who she is _to you_."

The Doctor strolled up, backpack over his shoulder and paddle in hand. "All right. I'll elaborate but first we need to get in the boat."

"Boat?"

Bill shouldn't have been surprised to find a small row boat tethered to the Tardis. Mars' atmosphere was breathable at this point in its life so she changed into swimmers and plastic sandals before clambering into the boat. The purple water was beautiful but fizzed against her skin when she touched it. "Is this safe?"

"You'll be fine," he replied, which wasn't really an answer.

They rowed for nearly an hour across the purple waters which lapped calmly alongside. Behind them, the grey cliffs had already begun to rust, dressed in umber skirts along the waterline. They were rowing towards them. Cracks began to appear in their facades and Bill realised there were caves scattered through them.

"So – Missy is your best friend from school?"

"Yeah that's basically it."

"Who you're violently in love with."

The Doctor dropped his paddle in the water and had to fish around for it before the current stole it away. The result was a slightly damp Doctor. "Rubbish."

"No I mean it literally. The pair of you. Whole worlds are torn apart when you fight. There's violence in your heart and it intensifies when you're around her. She makes you reckless and you act like a teenager trying to impress her. It's a fact of the universe."

The Doctor was holding his paddle, unable to row. It laid across the boat and he'd folded his arms, leaning on it. "Bill, she's my _friend_."

Bill sighed, feeling sorry for him. For an ancient, super-evolved, supreme being he was really quite dense. "I don't think that word means what you think it means. No one looks at their friends the way you two look at each other." She paused. "Actually I've never seen anyone look at someone the way you two do. I think you're _both_ afraid of what's drifting below the surface. Why else would you be so cruel to each other?"

Softness washed over the Doctor's eyes. They appeared grey in this light. "You think I'm cruel to her?"

"You've locked her in a vault for a thousand years. That's torture, for someone who lives among the stars. When I visited her on my own she was different. Wounded, even. She doesn't let you see that."

"You should not have done that," the Doctor's voice cracked when he tried to speak. He did not like being confronted with truth as brutally as this.

"Maybe not but you taught me the value in photographs so I brought her one of you and her. I wasn't sure if she'd like it or smash it but her reaction was..."

"Was what?"

"Sad. You make her sad."

If his hearts were ever going to fail, it'd surely be now.

They rowed the rest of the way in silence, ducking as their boat slid into the shadow of the cliffs. The world inside the cavern was lit with phosphorescent creatures. They twinkled in a carpet on every wall making Bill gasp. She pointed at them. "Life on Mars!"

The Doctor tried not to frown too sharply. "You just met the Ice Warriors – an indigenous civilisation on Mars and you're impressed by a patch of glowy-bugs?" She was though, he could see it in her eyes. "I guess they are rather neat..."

" _So_ neat."

* * *

"Nice coat..." Missy said, as the Doctor entered the vault. His shoulders were hunched sheepishly, his hands behind his back. Good gods he might have even run a brush through his hair. "Velvet. I like velvet."

He liked to save this coat for special occasions and today was an apology which was the most special event of all.

Once the vault door closed behind him, the Doctor paced forward into the room. Missy was sitting at the piano but she wasn't playing anything. For her, it had only been a few moments since he'd left their argument and the recently dried tears had left faint black trails on her cheeks.

"You've been gone a while, I take it." Her tone was calm but short.

"Not that long," he promised her. "I had to fetch something."

"Well next time you're fetching try picking up another sub-atomic stabiliser."

He glanced over to the bedside table. She'd turned their photo face down in her anger. Before he did anything else he wandered over to it and set it right. Missy watched, eyes sharp. She was struck by how oddly intimate his hands on her photo were, especially when he lingered in front of it.

"I went down to the maintenance decks," he continued, roaming toward the piano. "Your repairs are an art form, Missy. I'm surprised the Tardis didn't run away with you and leave me on that rusted lump for good."

"Sentiment." Missy replied. "It's a defect in her logic."

"Come down from there," he asked, in a whisper.

Missy caught his shift in tone. For a ghosting second she thought it might have been her older Doctor, come to liberate her from the future. No. It wasn't but he was starting to emerge. She closed the poetry book that she'd set in place of sheet music and descended the step from the false cage. A shiver of blue split the air as she crossed the barrier.

He met her at the bottom, nervous and shy.

"Are you all right?" Missy asked, tilting her head.

Before answering he let his hands come in front revealing a large, waxy purple flower which he'd been sneakily hiding from view. Missy knew exactly what that was. Amethyst Roses taken from the tidal lakes of Mars were a treasure of the universe. Her favourite. When they were children he'd promised to find her one even if he had to row through the caves himself.

"I know it's only been moments since we fought – for you – but I've had time to think." The Doctor began to say and then instantly panicked as Missy cried. "No that's not – Missy I'm -" Her tears were falling harder and he tried to stop them by leaning forward and sliding the flower into her hair. It looked stunning but it made her tears worse. _He had made her sad._ The Doctor's hearts shook.

Missy reached forward, gently pushing him _away_.

"We can't do this." She stepped back, retreating to the piano. Missy lifted the cover to let him appreciate the beauty of the instrument then she settled on the stool and let her fingers drag soundlessly across the keys.

The Doctor circled her as if she were on a pedestal. An unattainable dream locked behind glass. The vault loomed around them as vast as space and crushing as time. Those walls were folding in on them.

Her first notes were slow, reaching between the chords, occasionally dipping into the lower registers as though tempting the depth of her heart. _She buried things in there that he'd forgotten._ Others were hopeful – climbing steadily only to be knocked back, over and over by mournful refrains like the wayward poetry of his youth that she'd scorned him for.

When she broke into the run he realised that he could see into her mind. She'd lowered the walls around her thoughts and in them he saw the orange sky of home.

He wanted to run away. Every fibre within him sensed an end to their story but the music drew him up to the piano where he laid one of his hands on the polished surface and closed his eyes.

 _Grass whispered over his skin, slender and soft like his velvet coat. Cinnamon coated the air as the sky burned. The second star was rising, catching the mountains opposite – drowning them in light until they glowed._

 _He could smell the snow in the air, drifting from the mountain peaks in the distance. In front, the fields ended and the first of the red dunes lapped at the horizon. They swept over each other in a static ocean – waves that never broke – promises of violence caught in a moment of serenity._

 _There she was. In his mind – their minds – crimson grass to her knees and the Martian rose in her hair. He walked toward her, astonished by what she was allowing. When he reached Missy he realised that he could hear the distant pulse of Gallifrey's twin stars and the hum of the galaxy arms sweeping around them. This was how she remembered, with such depth that he forgot they were in a vault at the edge of time, two steps from the cliff._

 _Without a word, Missy lifted her hand and laid it against the side of his face. It was her eyes that caught him. They'd never been so clear and he wondered if it was the half-light playing tricks. Her other hand settled on his shoulder before the one on his cheek trailed, ever so carefully, down his arm until it fit perfectly into his hand. He curled his fingers gently around hers, not wishing to break this reverie. The Doctor leaned in as her head turned and before he realised what was happening they were shifting through the grass, dancing toward the dunes._

 _He lifted his arm and she spun underneath it – her skirt fanning out like the wayward ions in the photosphere. Missy smiled. He tugged her back, waiting as she twirled along his arm and pressed into his chest. She lingered a moment then slipped away, circling him with one hand tracing over his shoulder blades. He caught her hand before she fled too far. Circled her this time which gave her eyes a fresh shine._

Missy struggled with the keys. Her hands were shaking and her fingertips slipped where the tears had fallen. If she concentrated hard enough she could feel the warmth of his arms. They'd never dance anywhere but this phantom dream.

 _Missy watched the Doctor curiously as he gripped her waist. He lifted her from the field and she let her arms wrap lightly around his neck as he spun with her. As she was lowered, Missy rested her forehead against his, breathing softly._

 _She felt him slide his left hand down her spine and then held her steady as he leaned forward, allowing her to dip toward the grass. Inches between them._

 _No one could touch them here._

The piano fell silent.

The Doctor opened his eyes to find her watching him. She was still crying but now he understood why and somehow the truth was _worse_. "Come with me."

Missy shook her head. "No."

"Come with me," he repeated, shifting closer. "All of time and space, like I promised."

"No..."

The Doctor sat on the piano stool with her and laid one of his hands over hers. "Come with me, Koschei..."

 _This is how I die._ Missy realised, with such clarity that her accord slipped from her lips before she could catch herself. "Yes."


	14. Chapter 14

Missy panicked when she realised that the Tardis had assigned her the same room from her future travels with the Doctor. It was exactly as she'd left it – a floppy hat tossed on the chair and a royal robe, several shades too orange, dangling on a coat hanger next to the door. There were shells from Triychi scattered over the floor and a collection of alcohol vaguely hidden in the corner, most of it wine from his cellar. That was an ongoing project.

" _You better hope the Doctor never sees this…"_ She cautioned the Tardis. For a creature that feared paradoxes she sure loved to hover near them, like Icarus and his pension for stars. All was forgiven when Missy found a new set of clothes laid out. One for working on the Tardis engines and one for tormenting the Doctor. _"Well in that case, I guess we can be friends."_

The Doctor hadn't told his little pets about her yet. Missy could tell. He'd locked the front door and taken up a defensive position in the control room in case she tried to nick his Tardis and fly off. _Oh… how little he knew her._ Of course, he'd be more effective as a doorstop if he held his book the right way up.

"Doctor..." Missy drawled, ramping up her playfulness so they weren't confronted with the aching memories of the previous night. They'd not discussed what happened in the vault. He'd bounded on with life and she'd let him. Things were easier when they didn't talk and this Doctor wasn't ready for the words that needed to be said before the end.

"I thought I stole a Timelady, not a corner store car mechanic."

"You get both – same price." Overalls, sturdy boots, white shirt already ruined, hair in pigtails – yes, she did look like she'd been dragged out from under a car but something about the Doctor's darkening eyes told her that he rather fancied that. "Oh!" Missy paused at the foot of the stairs, not daring to climb them yet. He was perched above in one of the comfy chairs close enough to the fragmented shelves to make pilfering books easy. "Found your sonic specs!?"

He was wearing them protectively on his head. "Yep. Left them under a book." Missy smirked darkly and he had no idea why. _Why did she do that?_

"Having a bit of a lie in today?" She continued, slightly softer. Missy inched up one of the steps but stopped when she noticed him tense. He looked grey and she didn't mean the wild abomination of hair.

He was feeling the disconnect between his hearts today. They weren't quite beating right and it made the world around him spin. Or that might have been Missy creeping up the stairs with her nails scratching over the rail. It was difficult to tell. She was blurring into the background _thrum_ of the Tardis. No. She wasn't blurring. Everything was -

Missy swore sharply in Gallifreyan as the Doctor's arm flopped out from his lap and dropped the book onto the floor with an alarming _crash_. His head went back next and the sonic sunglasses slipped free. She took the last stairs three at a time and lurched forward to catch him before his skinny, stupid, _idiot_ arse fell out of his chair.

"You're a lousy prison guard!" she hissed, using her weight to set him back in his chair. Missy wondered if the Tardis had brought her on board to fix her engines or the Doctor. If it was the latter she was facing failure.

The book beside them had fallen open. It caught Missy's eye and she reached for it with her free hand, dragging it over the metal floor. "Sentimental old fool..." She sighed. He wasn't reading upside down, he was pressing her Amethyst Rose between the pages before it died. Missy could not process that information so she closed the book and nudged it safely to the edge of the room.

Missy tried her best to fold his limbs back into the safety of the chair. They touched so rarely because he was terrified of her but all her displays of hostility were empty threats – fireworks… Loud, scary and she thought beautiful. It had never occurred to her that he was the little boy with his hands over his ears, cowering from the light.

Missy hesitated.

She _did_ kill for the sake of it.

She ruled planets because she could and burned them when she was bored.

She was not so different from the stars themselves.

What were they but beautiful traps? All warm and loving until their violent ends.

There was melody at their finish. Colour. Ferocious cataclysm. A promise of something new. That was all she'd hoped for at the end of each face and for her last she'd been given this. A little less mania. A touch more hope. Her anger was still there but it felt distant, washing with jealousy, abandonment and fear somewhere at the edges of her mind. Not enough to overwhelm her any more.

Missy laid her head on his chest to listen to his hearts. The rhythm was wrong – bouncing about all over the place. No wonder he'd passed out. Flickers of golden light seeped out from her fingertips. The glow reflected in her eyes as she gifted him a little of her time energy. Enough to snap his hearts back into tune.

She should have left things there – abandoned him in the chair for a few days until he woke but Missy couldn't. She closed her eyes instead and settled against him protectively like a lioness guarding her cub. Her greatest acts of rage had always been reserved for those that hurt the Doctor. He never saw the carnage she created in his wake – villains he thought he'd spared were strung up to satisfy her whim. The worst she reserved for the ones that damaged his soul. Ashilda… Yes – now _that_ had been a work of art scattered through every beat of time.

Worse, she'd do it again. Even now.

The Doctor woke to a mess of frizz brushing under his chin and a weight on his chest. He blinked back sleep and realised that Missy's head was on his chest and her hand wrapped carefully around his waist. The rest of her was knelt on the floor beside where his book had fallen. He'd not found her like this since the academy and he had the bone-shaking fear that she'd come full circle in her lives. If they were back where they started, as friends, did that mean this was all fading to black? He had the sudden, rash desire for her to return to her evil ways. He could do that – hurt her so badly that she retreated into the darkness. At least then he'd know that this wasn't over.

That was possibly the most selfish thought he'd ever had and he was ashamed of it _but not sorry_.

 _Learn from your mistakes._

The Doctor couldn't tell if those thoughts were his or hers… Was she listening in?

He ran his hand through her bizarre pigtails first. They were all frizzy and a nightmare but he has a soft affection for them. Besides, he has no concept of style. Perhaps that's all the rage right now and she'd been trying to impress him.

"I thought you were meant to be fixing the engines?"

Missy isn't asleep.

She'd been kneeling on the floor so long the patterns in the metal were etched in her knees. "I am." Missy replied. "The Tardis lists you as an interface with faulty circuitry." She felt the shudder of his chest beneath her cheek as he chuckled softly.

The Doctor frowned. Sat up carefully, giving Missy time to slide off. He ran his hand up and down, undoing the buttons at the top of his shirt in his frantic exploration. "What did you do?" He turned on her sharply.

Missy was on her knees, hands playing with his sonic sunglasses that she'd rescued from the floor. There was no need to answer. "These were on the ground," she replied instead, leaning up so that she could slip them back onto his cross face.

He snatched them off at once, seeing straight through her ploy. "This is _not_ what we agreed _at all_."

"Feeling better?" Her tone turned harsh to match his.

"That really _isn't_ the point. Missy – you can't go around wasting time energy like that. I don't need you to save me. I never asked you to."

"I'll do what I like!" She swiped the book from the grounded and shoved it into his chest a little harder than she'd meant to. Not that it mattered. His hearts were fine. A moment later she was gone, bounding down the stairs, vanishing into the depths of the Tardis to work her frustration out on a well deserving scar. Fixing things had become her therapy. The tangible proof that she could be a force for good did more to her psyche than his melodramatic gazes.

"Bugger..." The Doctor hissed at himself, when she was gone. He set the book carefully on the shelf and spun around so that he could rest his head between his knees. He didn't know how much time energy Missy had gifted him but his hearts were beating stronger than before. Maybe it was even enough to repair them. _"I know you did this..."_ He lifted his eyes to the Tardis. _"You're supposed to be looking after her not manipulating her into favours."_

Missy didn't stop until she reached the heart of the Tardis. The dome and all its lies distracted her from the future. Her clipboard laid on the floor nearby with a list of tasks the Tardis had set out for her to complete. The worst part was the length of the list. That old girl, with all her wisdom and years didn't realise that _efficiency_ could be the cruellest brush stroke. There were only a few items left. Just enough for her to finish before…

" _Was that what you brought me here for?"_ She asked softly. It was written there, plain as anything else on the list.

 _Fix the Doctor's hearts._

Easy. All it cost her was the future.

The dome shivered. Fell into a sunset hue. Then did something it had never done before.

A hologram rippled into existence several feet from Missy.

She reached for the wall to stop herself falling.

" _No..."_ Missy begged the Tardis. _"I don't want..."_

The little girl's eyes were blue like hers – wild and dangerous.

" _Too much."_ Missy didn't even cry. She couldn't. Those feelings were buried too deep for even her to reach. If this was the Tardis' idea of a 'thank you' it was severely miscalculated. Missy's whole body started to shake. Her daughter. She was lost and a beautiful lie couldn't bring her back.

All of a sudden the lights went out. The Tardis plunged into pitch around Missy and a moment later she heard the Doctor's footsteps enter the room.

"What the hell..." He muttered to himself, as he stumbled about in the unexpected dark. "Are you fussing with the lights? Missy? Are you in here?"

The Doctor never found her.


	15. Chapter 15

Missy was gone for days, hidden away inside the Tardis. By the Tardis? He wasn't sure what was going on with those two any more. Every time he went looking for Missy he was met with abandoned corridors that led nowhere.

He didn't dare leave her alone in the Tardis so he sat in the control room playing mournful riffs on his guitar. Every now and then the lights flickered. Missy was below, beneath the sheets of dark-star alloy and ionised plutonium – ironstone tresses and gold plated circuitry, fixing things. He could feel the spirit of his time machine strengthen and soon she was pulsing with a healthy glow.

The Doctor set his guitar down and strolled over to the console. He arched forward, contorting his lanky form so that he could press his hand on the centre tube. There was colour inside it now, twisting and sprinting up and down like food dye sinking into a glass or Angostura bitters muddying one of her cocktails at twilight. Whatever Missy had done, the Tardis was happy.

Shortly after, she appeared in the control room covered in muck, cupping a mug of tea in both hands.

He didn't know how to start after where they'd let off but in the end, he didn't have to.

"Your tea is terrible." Missy leaned against the doorway. "That pet of yours – the shiny topped one – he makes it better."

The Doctor frowned, his face wrinkling up in horror. "Nardole makes a dreadful cup of tea. He keeps poisoning it with coffee." He watched Missy cast a predatory glance at his guitar. She'd been making eyes at it ever since she'd come aboard. "Did, ah, you surface for a break?"

"Nearly done," she nodded.

He scratched his head, right behind his ear. It was a weird nervous twitch that he'd picked up in this new face. "I think what I meant to say last time was 'thank you'." Missy softened. "And further to that point I was thinking of taking the Tardis out to stretch her legs. Is she up to it?"

Missy nodded, fluffy pigtails bouncing. "She's in better condition than she's been in millennia. You might even have some luck parking in the right era."

"There's nothing wrong with my parking."

* * *

It was agreed that for the beginning at least, Missy would hide below deck. She could hear the pitter-patter of mortals traipsing dirt across the floor and the healthy surge of the engines taking off. Scotland. Second Century AD and Missy can almost smell the cold. She waited for the bickering to move outside before strolling up to the control room and lounging in one of his favourite chairs. Missy dragged one of the screens out from the shelf and put her feet up, watching the scene outside.

She smirked at the Doctor rambling on and on. He might as well have been wearing a sign that said, _'this is an educational tour for my friend'_ on his front but the human/android combo hadn't noticed anything amiss. They didn't even see the Doctor turn back and wink toward the Tardis before stumbling down the grassy hill toward inevitable danger.

 _Didn't he know what winking meant?_

Missy wished that she could point out his first error. He'd let one of his expendables wander off. That usually ended poorly. Humans had a habit of being eaten or sold or lost or turned into drapery.

Then he took the rouse of self sacrifice a little far toward the end. Threatening to toss himself into another dimension to save the universe didn't do anything for her and she didn't, for one moment, believe that he'd actually follow through with such a threat.

Of course, if he'd done anything so stupid she'd have stormed right out of the Tardis to haul his arse out of the portal and toss a few Romans in for good measure. Thankfully his companions did that for her.

Ah. There was the lesson he hadn't meant to teach. _Let the mayflies make the hard moral choices. The future is purchased in their blood and the guilt bearable if it's willingly given._

He may like to imagine himself a benevolent entity standing by an elegant set of metaphoric gates but the Doctor was an ancient being tricking creatures into fates worse than death then lying to himself with caveats made of music.

At least she was upfront about slaughter.

That's where he found her, after the others had returned to their fuzzy little planet. She was standing in front of the Tardis console listening to the Celtic music channelled through the room. This Doctor still believed that she couldn't hear the subtle undertones of the universe. He'd learn and one day he'd realise the horror beneath those melodic chords. She wondered how he'd feel about music then...

Missy remembered that night. The glow of the star and his firm presence behind her, holding her against the darkness without fear of her reprisal. That memory was pure and she clung to it as a set of footsteps padded over the floor.

A single tear tracked down her cheek, a burnt glow emanated from the centre of the room and from nowhere – a draft – he appeared, watching her. Missy turned slowly, so startled that she nearly hit one of the structural supports draped over the room like the root system from an ancient fig.

The lies were harder to cast now.

A devious plan. Yes, of course. Why hadn't she thought of that? She usually had one of those in reserve but on this occasion she seemed to have misplaced it.

"Well the alternative would be much worse." The Doctor replied, sensing her wavering honesty.

"Really?" She asked. He didn't look like he could bear the answer.

"The alternative is that _this_ is for real." The Doctor tried not to look at her. Every time he did he saw Missy a little clearer than before and that terrified him. He knew that she was still lying about something important but he suspected it wasn't related to her change of heart. That, at least, appeared genuine. Whatever she was hiding, his Tardis was helping her do it and _that_ unsettled him right to the core. "And it's time for us to become friends again."

 _Friends._

Why didn't he take a knife to her throat, it would have been faster. Death did not frighten her as much as his mistrust. She had _never_ , through all their faces, years, fights and fears, stopped being _his_ friend. Hadn't she shown him that back at 3W? Was he so deaf that he hadn't listened to her confession about his hold over her hearts?

Missy let out the breath she'd been holding.

For a moment she saw her old Doctor standing before her – huge, sad eyes and without thinking she stepped toward him. Her fingertips got as far as his coat before he backed away.

Young Doctor. Stupid Doctor.

Missy knit her hands together and set her eyes on the floor. She thought about their farewell in the vault. How she'd never see those kind eyes again or feel him hold her with quite so much affection. His rough hands covered hers and she startled.

"I don't know." He added. "That's the trouble with hope – it's hard to resist."

She reached out with a whisper of her mind but he let go. As he walked away, thinking he had offered an olive branch in her direction, Missy was struck dumb by the horrific truth. _They weren't going to make it back to friendship in time._

She ran her hand over her face.

Nothing was going to stop the tears now. The curtains were closing. They were _done_.

* * *

That night Missy lay in bed cocooned by silk. The ceiling glittered with galaxies rather than stars – her predilection. She preferred the enormity of the superclusters to the fleeting gasps of starlight.

A shiver ran down the side of her neck.

Her breath caught. She reached up, touching her pearl skin but there was nothing there. It happened again… A brief moment of warmth that felt oddly like-

 _Oh… Oh heaven help her._

It was the Doctor. He must have allowed himself to slip into a dream because his thoughts were roaming straight through their psychic link, unabated. They both should have closed those doors long ago but somehow neither of them had found the time.

She clutched her chest softly to ground herself. The Doctor's thoughts were in danger of devouring her – his desires deeper than hers. Tears and pleasure, roughly earned. She glimpsed them all as his dreams projected into her mind with alarming clarity. Her fault. She'd filled his head with dancing and now he'd fallen further than she intended.

Missy gasped sharply. Echoes of his kisses lingered on her neck. She swallowed, sitting up before she lost the will to resist temptation.

She dragged a dressing gown over her shoulders and stepped out of her room but his thoughts were louder out in the open. His hands pressing against her arms. Missy laid back against the wall for a moment and swore she felt his hands slip across her thighs. That couldn't be right. Proximity was a basic law of the link.

There was a door next to hers that she'd paid no mind to before. Now she looked at it carefully. Surely the Tardis would not have been so brazen as to set their rooms side by side? Who was she kidding? That's exactly the kind of shit the Tardis got off on.

Her hand rested on the doorknob and then, with another brush of lips on her shoulder, she opened the it. Earth's sky. Of course. Would he have anything else? A moon skipped along the edge of the room, barely half full.

He lay in a muddle and she doesn't see any difference, whether he's in a field of grass or sweat-stained sheets.

His thoughts are so strong that she can't block them. She sees what he never intended and she understands for the first time just how deep his lies ran. His indifference was _bullshit_. His refusals _subterfuge._ His ardour _absolute_.

Missy grasped the doorway as the Doctor's thoughts wandered back to the afternoon she'd repaired his hearts. This time he didn't push her away. He held her gaze – reached for her face and brought her down to his lips. She trembled knowing full well what it felt like when he kissed her like that.

Her concentration stumbled and suddenly she was interfering with is dreams, sliding her hand down his chest…

Her eyes snapped open as a moan escaped the bed. Her head rolled against the door frame. _This was a terrible idea._

She pushed herself off the surface and fled down the corridor but no matter how far she ran she could feel him as though he were a breath from her. Missy saw him stalk toward her in the Tardis control room – and more than she could say… An office she didn't recognise with a dark wooden desk and a lamp that fell victim to a stray arm. The vault and her piano – vandalised by their _oh dear doctor…_

Missy rolled into corridor wall, breathless. Gave in. Dropped her mental walls until she collapsed with both hearts struggling for purchase.


	16. Chapter 16

"She's finished."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. The Tardis wrote me a list."

Missy can't bring herself to look him in the eye. Her body quaked at the sight of him the moment she wandered into the control room and now, watching him backlit with the orange hues of the central column, she couldn't focus. Neither could he, apparently. He was fussing with a knob on the control panel, flipping it on and off at random which must have been very irritating for the Tardis considering it regulated the flow of oxygen over the air filters.

Missy took his hand away from the panel. The sudden touch rattled him. She could see the flare of panic in his eyes but this time she did not back down. "Steady with that – you'll snap it off. I won't have you breaking things you can't fix."

"I had a thought." The Doctor said, trying not to focus on the cool weight of her hand over his – or how she'd looked in his dreams arched over the console. Those thoughts were wholly unhelpful.

"Oh crikey… Shall I call for help?"

"About hope."

Missy traced her thumb over the back of his hand curiously. "Do you always look this serious?"

"It really is down to the eyebrows." He pointed at them with his free hand. "They're got a will of their own." Right now they were slightly hooked at the edges, trying to unpick the loosely bound frenzy in front of him.

"Do you love me?" Missy's question slipped from nowhere, shocking both of them. She'd meant to contemplate that quietly to herself, not toss it on the floor for debate.

"I'm sorry?"

Her hand dropped from his. Apologies weren't what she was fishing for. Just a little hope. "Oh."

The Doctor cursed the natural gravel he called a 'voice'. People were always misreading him. "No," he moved to find her hand but it was gone. "Not _I'm sorry_ – I'm sorry?" Missy wasn't understanding the subtle but enormous difference. He forgot that her preferred language was Gallifreyan not the noisy thrash of English. "It's an expression of surprise."

"A confusing one."

"Quite."

He still hadn't answered her – or had he? Missy was confused. Was his silence meant to represent confirmation? His eyes were leaning towards it. She could always read those when language failed. _"Oh..."_

The Doctor panicked. His hearts stumbled but this time not in failure. Had he thought that last sentence aloud? No. Impossible. Missy still looked sad. He should probably say it though. If that was one thing his companions had taught him over the years it was that time stole moments and this one was worth holding onto.

 _Knock. Knock._

The Tardis door pushed open and two cautious sentient entities nudged into the room.

"See – I told you – she's still here..." Nardole complained, ambling in after Bill.

"I thought I heard her back in the vault!"

"That vault makes strange noises indeed," he replied. "I wouldn't believe everything you hear."

The Doctor and Missy had quietly put a few extra feet between each other while they were hidden by the console. "Or _hello_ is customary," he said, stepping into view, "when you wander into someone's house unannounced."

"Unannounced?" Nardole's mood had been set off balance the moment he sensed Missy in the room. He didn't trust her. She was bad news that one, bad luck as well. "You invited us here."

"Did I?" The Doctor rubbed his eyes. Maybe he'd been asleep longer than he meant to.

"A test flight." Nardole helped, but at all times he kept one eye on Missy. She was skirting around the shadows, fixing her hair.

That jogged the Doctor's memory. "Oh _yes_. I've been thinking."

Nardole turned to Bill, who was still trying to process the new familiarity between the Doctor and his captive. "Thinking would be a fine thing."

"That it's time to let Missy try out a real world scenario as part of her re-education in moral grounding."

Nardole's mouth hung open. Bill that answered for him, snapping her head around so fast she nearly lost a hair clip. "Seriously?!" Missy was in the background, slinking about like some kind of Savannah predator. As skilled as she was at garnering affection, Missy remained a dangerous entity. "That's a terrible idea."

"No, it's brilliant!" The Doctor insisted. "I pick a scenario, we drop her down into it and see how she does."

* * *

Missy dressed for the outing. Impeccable vintage attire and a new hat. The Doctor had gifted it to her, awkwardly handing it through the bedroom door while she changed, mumbling something about how he'd found it in the wardrobe. He hadn't. It was brand new which meant he'd gone out and _bought_ her a hat for the occasion. She shuffled it around in her hair until it was set, slightly off kilter, like the rest of her.

The Doctor gave her a once over before she was allowed through the doors on her own. The others watched on apprehensively. "I got you this too," he said, handing her an umbrella.

 _Sonic_. She detected the vibration as soon as her hands clutched its handle. That was a secret for her. She dared to hope, in that moment, that he was starting to trust her. His gesture would come to nothing because Missy doubted, very seriously, that she was coming back from this. The Tardis had run out of chores and this Doctor was nearly indistinguishable from the one that had found her in the vault that afternoon.

"Why thank you..." She drawled, twirling it playfully. "A useless gimmick but it's the aesthetic that counts." She considered pinning him back against the console as a 'thank you' but her desire to protect their future memories was stronger than her immediate lust. "Love you to bits, honey – don't wait up."

Then she was off, bounding at the doors with her reluctant extras in tow who shot the Doctor resent-laden glares on their way out. The Doctor shrugged them off and set himself up on the loggia with snacks.

Missy was in superb form and watching her prance about on his screen throwing seductive leers his way was everything he'd been looking for. He lied to himself most of the time, insisting that his hope was to teach Missy music and goodness but really all he needed was to tame her enough so they could thrash across the universe without laying waste to whole galaxies.

There was no danger of that here. He'd parked them near a black hole – a kind of 'boundary fence'.

He'd had very strong words with the Tardis about finding a place that would be safe for Missy to play in and this was where she'd landed. When he'd told Missy he'd take her to see the stars he hadn't specifically meant a dead one but at least it was a start. They could work their way up from here. A black hole to a neutron start – a white dwarf then perhaps something in the main sequence. To hell with it, maybe he'd skip the pudding and take her to a hypergiant just to watch her eyes run. She loved dangerous things and there was nothing hungrier than an unstable ball of plasma living on the edge.

She was doing well for ages but when blue-things arrived pointing guns the Doctor lurched out of his chair. Either Missy was going to snatch one of those guns or she'd find herself on the receiving end of a bad decision. He wasn't going to allow either of those scenarios to play out so he strode out of the Tardis, hair on fleek and his dramatic flare dialled up to a thousand to match hers.

He talked his way out of the first few confrontations and Missy teased him ruthlessly over his lecturing skills as he explained the ship's unfortunate predicament. Eventually sent Nardole and Bill off on an exploration against Missy's better judgement and the two them found themselves alone.

"If you wanted a date, you could have asked," she pointed out. "I'm partial to beach-side bars and breakfasts in space." No sooner had she said the words, reality whacked her in the throat. _This is where he'd gotten his ideas from._

Closed loop. Fixed point.

"Are you okay?"

She looked to her shoulder and found his hand there. Missy shrugged it off. "Obviously. Why wouldn't I be? There's you _and screaming_."

The Doctor spun. There _was_ screaming. "Where's that coming from?"

* * *

What was that human expression? _It all went downhill from there._

The last face she'd expected to find at the bottom of a maintenance shaft was her own. Missy picked herself off the floor and clocked her umbrella, out of reach, hidden at the edge of the room. That old face… Missy remembered the days she'd tried to claw it off as the drums, now silent, burrowed through her skull. Around them, the walls were made of crystal, distorting the fires in the engine to a neutral wash of cinnamon.

The Master – oh he was intrigued by her – always one for shiny things and Missy knew that she was certainly that.

"I remember you taller." Missy started, hoping to wrong-foot, well, _herself._

He laughed. Manic. Is this what she looked like to the Doctor? A barely strung web of fleeting sanity doused in inconsolable rage? Missy was thousands of years older than this manifestation and in that time she'd found a stillness. She closed her eyes. Picturing the tide. Channelling the calm.

"Who are you?" The Master asked.

Missy could feel him circling in her thoughts. Her walls went up, locked fast. Then she fashioned a lie she knew he'd believe because it flattered his ego and peaked his appetite.

"Don't you know?" Missy drawled, as her heavily mascaraed eyes opened. "You promised to know my face anywhere as I know yours." The Master was out of his depth, for once. Missy knew him cover to cover but he did not know a single line of her.

"Doctor?" He asked, as the edge of his lip twisted into a smirk (or was it a snarl)? "Oh _dear_ Doctor. Have a little accident with that face? Love the hat though, not usually your style."

"I'm in disguise," Missy purred back.

"Oh yes. Well, you were always rubbish at that."

Then he flattered her – stalked her with his eyes and teased her with his devious plan. It was goog to know that at least one version of her had a plan.

' _Missy, what are you doing?'_ A voice thundered in her ear. The Doctor was listening in through the earpiece as he tried to find her. He'd nearly lost his mind when she'd fallen through the floor but now he was deathly nervous, she could hear it in his tone.

" _Trust me_ you don't want to go messing with that." Missy pointed at the panel of buttons near the Master. She was working her way toward the concealed umbrella.

 _Trust me._

There were Mondasian Cybermen crawling through the wreck and a hungry black hole testing the hull with tendrils of gravity. So why was it the Master's old face that had him shaking and Missy's brave words that challenged his gravitas?

Missy twirled playfully. She had to keep the illusion moving. Distract herself with pain and desire long enough to regain control. Her old self was a renegade and this one appeared to be from an alternate reality for she had no recollection of being here before. "I mean – it's _entirely_ up to you," she continued. The hiss of the flames licked at the walls. "Black holes can be fun."

"I know," the Master replied, one of his gloved hands lingering on a lever, "I crawled out of this one." Then he drew back from the lever and considered her. "There is time, I guess."

Missy bent down, picked up her umbrella and rested it on the concrete floor. She leaned on it, curving forwards. "For us? There's always time."

* * *

The Doctor wasn't an idiot, he knew what she was doing. He needed time to reach Bill and that was something Missy could do. The time dilation was not as strong near the engine bays. Five minutes for the Doctor – an hour for her. She could hold the Master for an hour.

As soon as the Doctor scrambled off down the corridor his breathing started to stretch out into the lower harmonics in her ear. Great expanses of time distorted everything. Not even Timelords could fathom enormities.

"You dance now?" The Master asked, noticing her nervous sway.

"I've always danced," Missy replied. "If the music is tasteful."

"Well go on then, you've never danced with me. Seeing as we're at the end of time why don't you give us a kiss?"

 _She was scaring herself._ That didn't sound like an invitation – it sounded like the toll of bells at dusk.

Missy accepted his outstretched hand and fixed him with a lying smile. He was cold beneath the glove, guiding her deeper into the room. The Master gave a sharp tug and Missy tumbled along his arm, landing against his chest as he tilted backwards, taking her with him. _Those eyes are old._

"Are you still afraid of me, Doctor?" He asked, moving inwards. "I could never fathom why. I'm not afraid of you," he added, grazing his nose against hers.

 _Traps are my flirting. Flirting is a trap._

"Actually," the Master added, considering the frightened eyes beneath, "the only thing I'm afraid of is _myself_."

His arms wrapped around her, holding her steady as he scratched his beard against her cheek. Missy knew how the Doctor kissed and mimicked his veiled passion in reply. It ended in the Master's laughter as he wandered away, leaving her in possession of the floor. This room was not unlike the vault. Its walls held back the fury of the starship's engine but they were no less of a prison.

"Good. Not bad." The Master added, roving back to the control panel. "A bit reserved for my tastes. You know me, I prefer a blaze of glory if it's on offer."

"Why don't you come back to the Tardis with me and we can try again?"

"That would be lovely wouldn't it?" He waited for her to nod. "Except the Tardis is stuck here, just like me. Black holes are tricky beasts. This one's really got its fangs in the ship. The crew – simple, stupid humans. They tried to survive the rigours of millennia by replacing bits of themselves with the ship. Nasty business but they didn't have the parts… I wasn't here for the show but from what I can tell it went a little wrong after that."

"I saw them," Missy replied. "The pain drove them crazy and they forgot what they were surviving for."

The Master tapped his foot with the rhythm of drums that haunted him.

Missy cast her eyes down and – _and noticed another umbrella._

He convulsed with a wave of amusement. This time it was laced with darkness. "We were never very good at the lies." He stared at her fiercely. "It puzzles me why you try it, every time."

"Every time?" Missy tried not to look at the second umbrella but she couldn't stop herself.

"The Doctor he _can't – leave – well enough – alone_." Each word was accompanied by a sharp slap to his own head like he was trying to shake something out of there. "It's okay..." He hissed at her, eyes mad. "He can't hear us at the moment. He's scurried off to the other deck to save his pet. Don't worry, he'll come back for you, if that's what you're worried about. This little _arrangement_ ," the Master waved his hand through he air in Missy's direction, "has really done a number on him. I should have thought of it earlier."

Missy dropped her act. "You knew who I was from the beginning." It wasn't a question.

"Lover-boy has made a bit of a mistake, I'm afraid. The first time I killed you he was watching on. You would have loved it. He sounded like one of those wailing humans we like to taunt. Tears for days and those eyebrows… They peaked so hard they gave the Andes a run." The Master widened his eyes suggestively. "Then he flew away and since then he's kept returning with you, over and over, daring time. He's trying to get it right, you see but the joke is only I remember. So I wait for you and your pathetic little masquerade. Then I kill you – that's where this bit comes in," he added, raising one of the weapons she'd seen the blue things with. "And he and I start again. You don't need to be there for that part. You've finished your role and it was very entertaining. No really. I loved it. Perhaps next time you can sing me something nice."

The jolt from the weapon ripped through her. It was over in an instant but it left Missy's veins crawling with electricity that threatened to tear her apart from the inside. She gasped – dropping her umbrella which rolled away until it settled next to the other one.

She could hear the black hole yawning outside the ship. Beside her, the quartz walls softened against the raging fire as the stardrives destroyed themselves. They wouldn't hold indefinitely.

"Go on – you usually say it."

 _Doctor._ It was on her lips but Missy held his name back. If she died here this started again. Instead, she crumpled to the floor and banished all sign of life from her exterior.

The Master frowned at her corpse. "I'm getting worse at this..." He muttered irritably. "Usually it takes two shots."

* * *

Five minutes – _okay six_ – but he'd run into a bit of trouble with a Cyberman on the way out. Nardole and Bill were with him as he scooted into the corridor. He could feel the heat from the burning drives.

"It's the pull of the black hole," he explained, when they panicked. "The ship's core spins so fast that normally gravity doesn't affect it in a destructive way but it's come too close and developed a tidal bulge. The pressure within the system has risen so high it's verging on collapse. Imagine that. A miniature nova contained in metal."

"I'm trying not to," Nardole replied.

"Are you sure she's all right in there with the other version of herself?" Bill asked, trying to wrap her mind around what was going on.

"I've come across a few past faces myself over the years. Being the eldest in the room helps."

When they reached the door, the Doctor levered it open and stopped dead at the sight. Missy was on the floor, pushed to the edge of the room while the Master waited, centre stage, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Finally – the original article." The Master began.

"What have you done to her?" The Doctor asked, eyes dangerous.

The Master glanced over his shoulder and shrugged at the body. "Oh, she was a bit of fun but it's the hair. I don't like it. What is she anyway, your experiment?" He spat the word. "You've always threatened to fix me _well_ is that what it looks like? The madness keeps me alive."

"...you killed her..."

"And I'd do it again and again _and again_."

"There's still a chance," the Doctor stepped forward despite the protests from behind. "One day you'll be her. Come with me."

"No thanks."

The Master didn't see the blow. It came from behind, an umbrella with a skeleton of steel, smacking into the side of his head with such force that he was thrown across the room – unconscious.

Missy was left in his wake, leaning against the umbrella which she balanced on the ground. "Not dead, actually. One should always check those things before making grandiose speeches."

Both Nardole and Bill were left with jaws open as the Doctor lunged forward and collected Missy in his arms.

"Gently. Gently." Missy whispered seriously against his ear, as she was spun around. She wasn't so much as holding on as collapsed against him.

He lowered her to the ground gently and found her falling into his arms. "Missy?" He asked, trying to set her back on her feet. She almost made it but had to leave one arm draped over his shoulder.

"I lost my hat." She complained.

"I'll get you another one." He promised. "We have to go – the ship is falling into the event horizon and if it does that we'll have to stick around for the ride."

She managed a half-laugh. Her body was reeling from the blast. "Psychotic as he was, he was right about one thing. The Tardis can't leave. It's gone and got itself tangled up in the gravity well. I can hear her heart. She doesn't have the strength to break free."

"It's all right. We'll find a way. Missy?"

Missy drifted closer and rested her head against his lapel. "I already did. While you were chasing after pets I had plenty of time to think."

It felt like she was tapering off. The Doctor tried to right her again, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her gently. "Well that's good…?"

She smiled but it wasn't _good_. "Her engines were too weak all the other times."

"Other times?" He frowned, confused.

"But I'm good with engines and I fixed hers. She'll be able to survive the blast just fine."

"What blast? Missy, you're not making any sense."

"Oh..." Missy lifted her eyes to the ceiling. The Doctor followed but all he saw was the terrifying flames of the core melting. "Music… I hear it."

Then she shot him in the arm with the Master's weapon and together they collapsed onto the floor. Missy wasn't able to stand on her own and finished with her head against his chest. She smiled, then… "It's okay – I changed it to stun." Missy fended off screeches from the Doctor's companions. She tapped his chest affectionately with her hand. "Nothing wrong with his hearts. I checked."

"What did you do that for?" Bill asked, kneeling next to the Doctor with his head in her lap.

Missy fumbled for the railing beside so that she could sit up. It was difficult to breathe. "Because you are the mayflies and if the Doctor managed to teach me one thing it's that _you_ get to choose."

Nardole was starting to understand. He'd taken a step back and reassessed the room.

"Clever," Missy nodded up at him. "I can free the Tardis by destroying this ship. The explosion of the core will be quite something. More than enough force to give her a bit of a nudge. It can only be done from here which means one of us has to press a button well… pull a lever. The Doctor or me? Make your choice. I can handle rejection. Either way only one of us is flying away and I warn you, I'll not let him die here."

Bill cupped the Doctor's head protectively. "Since when do you save the Doctor?" she asked.

"Since _always_." Missy replied. "Since he nearly drowned beneath the purple lakes. Since the wrecking yards of Gallifrey. Since he was afraid of the dark. Since-"

"You're not even lying, are you?" Bill was floored by the honesty. Her lifespan wasn't long enough to understand Timelords but she grasped the concept of love. "This is messed up." She shook her head. "He's going to hate us for this."

Missy nodded. "I know." Something welled up the back of her throat, forcing her onto her hands and knees. She wretched violently, coughing up blood that had seeped out of her veins. The small amount of time energy in her body flickered wildly, trying to heal her.

Nardole tried to help her but she wiped her mouth and hissed.

"Run – you fools!" She growled at them. "This only works once. Hang this on the door on your way out," Missy added, twisting the handle of her umbrella before giving it to Nardole.

* * *

The sonic umbrella exploded with a flash of light and ripple of heat sufficient to melt the door closed. Missy made it back to the control panel, ignoring the blood seeping through her clothes. She'd stolen his sonic sunglasses again and opened them carefully, running her fingertips over their rims affectionately before setting them on the top of the panel.

She felt a sense of relief wash over her. Her choice was made. Even if she had been able to regenerate there was going to be nothing left of the ship when she was through with it. Only dust. A beautiful blaze of colour at the lips of the black hole. He could open the doors of his Tardis and watch her go if he was quick.

There was movement behind her. "This – this isn't right..." The Master groaned, rolling onto his back.

"You forgot something," Missy turned and leaned back against the panel. She could hear her blood dripping onto the floor, running off her skirt. "You're me – _but I am not you_. Now, I'd like to introduce you to Missy's finishing school."

"What?" The Master managed to roll onto his knees. She towered over him – an Amethyst nightmare of wild abandon – her hand on the lever. She wouldn't…

"Because _we're finished._ "

* * *

Nardole and Bill barricaded the Doctor inside the Tardis. He'd woken in a panic – flinging himself around until he discovered that the Tardis herself had locked the doors.

He grabbed one of the screens as it flickered into life and recoiled at the image of Missy.

"She stole my sonic sunglasses!" He realised, feeling the empty space in his jacket. She was using them as a camera so that he could watch. "Missy! MISSY!" The Doctor smashed his fist down against the Tardis console, causing the image to flicker. She couldn't hear him. Before she turned her back she'd lingered in front of the glasses and given him a very deliberate _wink_.

 _Trust me._

Her words haunted him.

"Oh no… What have you let her do?!" The Doctor growled at his companions. "That's _my_ job!" He jabbed his hand sharply toward the screen – as if no one else was allowed to be brave.

The Tardis engines started up beneath him. The Doctor could hear them humming, preparing to fly away as soon as the ship…

"Don't you _dare_ ," he hissed at the Tardis. "Don't you bloody dare!"

 _We're finished._

Missy's words echoed for a moment before the brutal snap of energy from the explosion knocked the ship on its side. They all fell, tumbling helplessly across the Tardis as she broke free of the black hole. Outside the ailing spaceship disintegrated in a furious roar of light – entirely vaporised by the violent death of its core. Its remains scattered out like a nebula, curling back in on itself as the black hole grabbed at its corpse.

It was gone.

The Doctor was the first to wake and this time the Tardis let him open the doors and look at the distant ember failing in the darkness. He couldn't hear a thing…

The doors slammed shut, waking Nardole and Bill just in time to see the Tardis tremble. She wheezed, dragging an errant signal from the void.

Then a ghostly image appeared in the centre of the room. The Doctor shook his head, rejecting its very presence. This couldn't… He didn't accept it.

Missy stood before them as a hologram – her eyes open, gazing into nowhere.

"...what..." Bill began, but Nardole gripped her arm sharply, shaking his head.

" _It's dark."_ Missy's image spoke. Her voice wasn't quite right. There was a metallic edge to it which the Tardis tried to fix, channelling power from the lower decks. _"Too dark. I can't – oh… I know what this is. That's brutal, even by her standards."_

"What is she?" Billed whispered.

"An echo," Nardole replied. "It's an impression of someone's mind left in the circuitry. The Tardis must have taken it through the sonic sunglasses."

"So she's dead?"

Nardole nodded.

The Doctor stepped in front of Missy. She was a perfect copy, snatched from her last moment. He could see now what she'd tried to hide. "Missy?" He breathed. This wasn't happening again…

She could hear him and turned slightly to the sound of his voice. _"It's all right. Last words. Things that we should have said. Quiet."_ She shushed him. _"Listen."_

"I can't." The Doctor replied.

Missy ignored him. _"Had we a little more space between the cracks. Had we time..."_

"Missy – don't do this." She was speaking in Gallifreyan and the Tardis was translating. Missy was right – always right – its eloquence left him floored.

" _I'd rather drown with your sad eyes than drift the oblivion."_

Bill clutched Nardole.

Missy's image smiled as she thought about the Doctor's eyes. They were probably big and sad now, exactly as she remembered. Her Doctor. " _We could watch empires crawl from the dust – then I'll tear them down."_ She added, with an indulgent grin. _"You can weep, if you like, hunched over their foundations and I'll stand guard with you and drag the next flicker of life from the ash. You see, Doctor, nothing can start if it's not prepared to end."_

He'd been running from endings all his life.

" _Maybe that's the part I've mistranslated all these years and twisted into reckless violence but surely you are guilty of transposing errors when it comes to the universe's music? You've never heard the raucous – that frantic flap of wings. You don't listen to the stars howling in the dark and you've closed your mind to the cycles of death, wailing, fading, forever vanishing beyond your narrow view."_

The Doctor was starting to sense something beneath the beautiful lie. A darker motif. It felt like music but it wasn't...

" _You haven't paused to feel the fire in a star's restless waters – or let the pain cut so deep that you wake with another set of eyes and see the world bleed afresh."_ Missy hesitated, resting one hand on her side where something dark trickled over her fingers.

He was drowning in his own tears. He could see now that during these last decades he had not fixed her at all. She was as she'd always been – he'd simply learned to see her.

" _You live in dawn while I prefer dusk – tempted by day and me by the darkness. But you don't realise that light blocks the truth and in darkness, it overwhelms. In between the two, a sad refrain bridges the oblivions and what you thought were the stars singing was always just me, reaching out, trying to tempt you for a night or two because, Doctor, you've never really looked at the universe until you peek between the cracks."_

Her image shivered.

" _Cold..."_

This was it. Her echo was failing. The Tardis was a lot stronger than a sonic screwdriver but she couldn't keep the memory alive forever. Missy was fading. Flickering. Fragile…

"Missy no..."

" _It's already done, Doctor. What did I used to say? I can't remember..."_ Her mind was unravelling. Missy could feel the threads spinning off into the darkness.

"You want me to say something nice."

" _Oh yes. A parting compliment. That would be nice."_

"You were _fantastic_."

" _A parting compliment."_

"Missy?" Several of his tears hit the floor beneath and trickled through the wiring.

" _That would be nice."_

"No. No. No..."

" _This is – it's not right."_ Missy started to panic. _"My head – I can't. I can't think. Doctor?"_

"I'm here. I'm right here." But he couldn't touch her.

" _Turn it off. I don't want to go like this – rambling until – I can't..."_

"Koschei – remember the stars?"

" _Always. They're still there. I can hear them breathing. They're nice."_

"That's what you are to me."

" _A parting compliment..."_

"Oh no… Missy..."

" _Something nice."_

Then she began to loop.


	17. Chapter 17

The taste of her was still on his lips when he walked out of the vault. He fled the basement, scaled the stairs and traversed the university library where he let his hand run along the dusty spines of books no one bothered to read any more.

Upon reaching his office he closed the door and laid back against the cold wood. His Tardis waited quietly in the corner. He'd painted over the scorch marks and replaced the bulb shattered by the explosion.

No more visits.

He'd used up the cracks between his first draft with Missy. In his youthful raged he'd stormed from the brink of calamity straight back into her life without thinking and now there was nowhere left for him to run. The worst of it was the silence. It followed him everywhere. Missy had taken the stars with her.

The prospect of mucking about in time and space was all a bit lacklustre without the threat of her lurking around the next corner with a devious plan. Hell, he'd take all of her mania over this – over nothing…

He still wasn't speaking to the Tardis. The Doctor might not have worked out _exactly_ what went on in those intervening months but the Tardis helped manipulate Missy into her death and he was furious. No. He was in a place well beyond fury. When he looked at that blue box he felt all the ferocity of an ocean beneath a storm. He'd even scared Nardole and Bill off, throwing them out of the Tardis in the throes of his rage. It was there, coursing beneath his skin like time energy. At any moment it could flare and he didn't want anyone to see that. Except his Tardis. She _deserved_ the damage.

His eyes wandered to the photographs on his desk. He could feel those faces looking at him. They judged with their frozen eyes. _Maybe he was judging himself. Ghosts couldn't see what he felt._ The Doctor was caught between the two and picked a third option – hunting into his Tardis.

The truth was that he knew exactly where he had to travel and he'd run out of reasons to avoid it.

The Tardis materialised in front of the vault with its soft light pulsing in the darkness like a sea creature, hunting the depths. He paced toward the towering doors furnished with Gallifreyan text. His breath misted in front of his lips as he approached. Even from this distance he could feel that it was empty. His younger self had gone of chasing echoes leaving the vault untouched.

Twenty years or a day since he'd stood here – depending on how you measured time.

He punched in the code and waited as the doors swung open. They scratched against their tracks. Strange. He'd never noticed that. The room was as Missy'd left it on her last day. He waited for the doors to close before he pressed deeper. There he found their cups of tea left, half drunk, on several of the tables. A spray of yellow roses wilted on another, dropping petals on the marble floor.

The Doctor avoided the piano. Her memories linger there, too strong for him to bear so he roamed all the way to the broken window and knelt among the glass. It flickered on the floor trying to render an image with its last gasps of power. A couple of shadows that might be leaves. Wings. It was meant to be a forest but all he saw was the stool that shattered it. As he turned one of the shards over in his palm he noticed a red stain. The Doctor dropped it in fright.

Missy's blood. Now it was on his hands. She must have cut herself that day he'd thrown the chair across the room. _That was today and the blood was still wet._

He left the floor and moved to her bed. The sheets were pushed to one side where they'd laid down earlier. He'd played her songs on his guitar and she'd dragged her nails over the strings making them sing in alarm. Her glasses were on the table beside – little half-moons of glass. _We match._ Behind them sat the framed photo Bill had risked her life to gift. Goodness, Missy had even managed to catch him in a smile. Well… Maybe not a smile but a moment of confusion with enough levity to compliment her wild eyes.

How did she know when it was his birthday? He genuinely had no idea. A stifled crow caught at his lips. Maybe she didn't…

He decided to keep that photo – sliding it into his jacket. There's a space on his desk for her mischievous eyes and he's willing to risk Nardole's protest after all, she was oldest friend. His friend. Was…

 _Tenses were grim._

The Doctor stood up suddenly and wiped his face on the back of his sleeve. He squared off against the piano.

Up the stairs, his shoes shufflled on the floor then through the faux containment field. The piano hung on the platform like a stone weight in his heart. She's all over it. Her fingerprints on the black lacquer. A stray hair. A book of Gallifreyan poetry she'd left in place of sheet music. A glass of red, untouched, on the floor beneath.

He pressed his palm to the lid. Closed his eyes. Wished for the vision to return. Sensibly he knew it had come from her, not the piano but hope was a terrible thing.

The Doctor dragged his hand across the surface until it clipped the edge of the fall board. He sat down and he lifted the curved slip of wood, revealing the keys.

His fingers retreated.

There was blood on the keys too.

He pulled his sleeve up and wiped it across the pale surface. He pressed too hard and flinched as a mournful note echoed across the vault.

The first of her song. Loud and ruthless.

Tenderly, he brought his other hand up to settle on the keys. He spread his fingers, checking carefully before he hit another note. The Doctor didn't need sheet music – he'd never forget what she'd played for him that night. It circled his dreams. Nested in his heart. For twenty years it tormented him.

He played it now.

As the notes rippled through the room he could have sworn he heard the first beat of Sol, mewing quietly in the sky. The Doctor closed his eyes and the beat grew. _Thump. Thump. Thump._ Spinning tides of plasma making space shiver and he could hear it – as she had. He delved deeper between the sad notes. There was more. The hush of the Milk Way rustling against Andromeda and two roaring black holes sizing each other up. That's what she heard. The oncoming storm. She'd tried to teach him…

The Doctor felt her lips. His fingers slipped immediately into a false note.

 _Theta._

He ripped his hands away from the piano. Her voice had stolen through the cracks between voids – fresh.

His hands dived into his jacket and extracted his physic paper.

' _Theta'_

He dropped it onto the keys. The freshly inked words bore into his soul. His hearts hammered.

* * *

"What did Missy do?" Bill asked, sitting with Nardole on the steps of the university. It was cold – mist dripping off the wind which hit them in the face in passing gusts. Leaves rolled by their feet, dried and finished for the year. They crunched into the gutters and waited for the rain.

"The Doctor never asked." Nardole admitted.

"What – he saved her from an execution without even asking what she'd done?"

Nardole nodded. "That's what it means to be the Doctor's friend."

 _Friend_ still felt like a bit of a stretch. "Do _you_ know what she did?"

"I looked it up." He admitted. "Thought at least one of us should know."

"Are you really going to make me ask?"

"She wiped out an entire race from existence. Removed them – completely – from time."

"Oh shit..." Bill looked toward the ground. _Fond_ was the wrong word for her thoughts regarding Missy but since that day on the spaceship she'd been spending a lot of time thinking about her. Friendship and devotion were powerful things and what the Doctor had lost that day was something she couldn't even wrap her head around. "Probably better that he doesn't know."

"She was saving Earth." Nardole added quietly. "It was the only way and she knew full well that she'd get caught for it but she went ahead with it because, and this is a quote from her trial, _'it's his favourite planet'_. Don't feel too sorry for her, Bill. Missy has done a lot of unspeakable – unforgivable things during her lives."

"She was changing though. The Doctor said."

Nardole sighed. "Showing someone a few pretty lights in the sky is hardly going to undo thousands of years of torment. We'll never know if her intentions were true."

"And what about the Doctor – do you think he's ever going to come back for us? Because I was thinking, maybe that's it… And if it is, you know, that's okay, I understand. I just need to hear it so that I can close this chapter on my life. With a bookmark because it was amazing."

"The Doctor always comes back, Bill."

* * *

Starlight died into roving clouds, tracking along the horizon of a pastel sky. Cliffs lifted to greet them, shifting colour at the faintest whim. They were dying. The rock cracked apart one century at a time before crumbling into the shallow sea.

Missy found herself standing in the water. It lapped around her ankles – warm and surreal as if she were trapped in a Salvador Dali. The reflections on its surface were perfect. A mirror of the sky except for the faint outline of torn pages floating beneath. Poetry and sheet music. Layered like sand. Forever and ever. _This definitely wasn't real._

A set of rusted iron gates loomed ahead. Their reflections reached like dark claws on the otherwise perfect waters. It took her a moment to realise that it was the decayed remains of the vault – collapsed and broken until only its supports remained.

Is that what this place was for? A crypt where her timeline had been left to unwind until she too became a layer of dust on the water?

Petals floated beside her, scattered over the surface. Dew collected in their base like tears but they weren't hers. Somewhere – nearly lost in the chorus of violence – she picked out a strain of sad piano music.

" _Theta..."_

She whispered her friend's name to the mirage.

* * *

The Doctor had returned to the Tardis and now paced around the console wearing tracks in the floor.

The psychic paper was laid open on the console and every now and then the single word refreshed as though someone were screaming it. There was only one person who'd do that. If he hadn't bloody gallivanted off so fast in a rage he might have noticed earlier.

"Missy knew her death was coming..." The Doctor said aloud. The Tardis was listening, whirring softly. "And she's smart – much smarter than me. All that time with the resources of a Tardis and she didn't plan anything? No. I don't buy that."

He pushed away hope and focused on _reason_.

The Doctor turned on his Tardis. "Did you do something? Oh… you did. _You did!_ " He grabbed the console, staring into the pulsing lights. "Go on give me a hint. Is she alive? I need to know. Tell me. TELL ME!" He covered his mouth as he yelled, trying to hold the emotion back. The words on the psychic paper bled rivers of ink. Some of it was diluted by what looked like tears only they weren't his.

"How could Missy be dead..." The Doctor mused to himself, trying to think it through. Logically he understood what happened. She'd blown the ship and disintegrated – two copies of herself in one go. Her echo was real but that was just a snapshop of a mind. A copy trapped in cyberspace, decaying. Missy was a Timelord and that meant there were rules and protocols. She hadn't even sent him her Confession Di-

"Stupid Doctor. Stupid _idiot_ Doctor!"

The Tardis agreed, flaring with a moment of colour.

He abandoned the control room and raced across the Tardis, taking the corridor junctions so fast he smashed into a few of them and toppled right over. He stopped at her bedroom door and hovered his hand over the handle. He took a breath – embraced the faintest glimmer of promise.

"Just a little bit of hope..." He begged.

Surrounded by crimson sheets and guarded by a sea of galaxies above, his Confession Dial lay in the centre of her bed with the brooch he'd given Missy the day her daughter was born. He almost fell onto the items as he reached forward.

"Missy..." He whispered, stroking his hand over the golden surface. He lifted it to his lips and was hit with the deep scent of cinnamon. But how to get her out? Had a Timelord ever been trapped in someone else's Confession Dial before? They were in uncharted waters. He eyed the brooch suspiciously. Maybe she'd already solved that problem too. Missy and the Tardis had a long time to think it through.

 _Trust me._

The Doctor swallowed. _He did._ He trusted her. Now he had to prove it.

He scooped up the items and carried them back to the main deck. "Missy, you better be right..." he whispered, as he placed the Confession Dial on the floor. He gripped her brooch firmly in one hand and took a deep breath.

If this didn't work and she was really in there then he was about to kill the last fragment of her…

The brooch pierced the Confession Dial and almost immediately a blinding light ripped through the centre of the Tardis. The Timelord technology processed the breech and immediately enacted its failsafe protocols, re-materialising any lifeforms trapped inside.

...

The perfect sky shattered above Missy. It cleaved into horrifying pieces and then fell into the water around her, exactly as the vault window had. She ducked – screaming as pieces the size of mountains smashed into the sea. Light poured in through the cracks and behind it a familiar wheezing of a certain blue box.

 _No._

She looked down at her hands. They were fading. The light spread and soon it consumed her. Missy held her breath in panic then -

\- then she was standing inside the Tardis.

"Doctor…" Missy choked back a sob. He was there, on his knees, staring at her as though she were the sum of all his fears.

The brooch tumbled onto the ground as he stood up – wide-eyed and broken. "Are you real?"

Real or not, Missy leaped into his chest and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. His caught at her waist and dragged her closer.

"I could hear you..." He murmured against her hair.

"I was screaming..."

One of his hands can't help cupping the back of her head, holding her as if she were the most precious thing in the universe. "You should have told me, Missy."

"Oh yes," she drawled, turning her head so that she fit into the crook of his neck. "And you'd have let me go? Dear Doctor, I think you'd have kept me locked in that vault for a thousand years if you thought it'd keep me alive."

Her logic was perfect as ever. "Twenty years… I left you in there..." He cast a horrified gaze at the Confession Dial. He wanted to simultaneously burn it and frame it.

"I played cards with your shadow pet." Missy lied, then added softly. "It wasn't like that. The Tardis tried to protect me. She set it up with a memory – one she thought I like. I went to Mars like we promised." She pulled back to look into his eyes. He was crying again but this time there was happiness creeping into his eyes. They were changing. A different Doctor.

"I should have taken you to Mars instead of flying off..."

"You were only a child," Missy touched his face softly, following some of the creases, "running from the dark."

"And what were you?"

The edges of her lips caught the broken fragment of a smile. "I ran _in the dark_. Not the same thing at all."

The Doctor met her eyes and in that moment he understood her completely _but not at all_.

* * *

FIN


End file.
